


The Ace Benders

by TiedyedTrickster



Category: Avatar: The Last Airbender, 逆転裁判 | Gyakuten Saiban | Ace Attorney
Genre: EVERYONE - Freeform, F/F, F/M, Gregory Lives, M/M, and byrne lives, and dhurke, and metis lives, and that other all-important question: what if ace attorney characters but in the avatar world?, answering that all-important question: what if ace attorney but with bending?, congratulations Apollo you're the avatar, cross posted from tumblr, disasterbender larry, earthbender edgeworth, enjoy that, firebender phoenix, it's the AU of the living family members y'all, jove lives too, mia lives and gets a boyfriend and a girlfriend, the ace attorney-avatar the last airbender AU that somebody actually asked for, world building, you know who lives in this AU?
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-01
Updated: 2020-09-14
Packaged: 2021-03-06 02:27:00
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 57
Words: 35,612
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25655869
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TiedyedTrickster/pseuds/TiedyedTrickster
Summary: Early in July, I was asked what kind of benders I thought the various Ace Attorney characters would be, the asker not realizing that I have been thinking about this very question since 2019. Since then this AU has grown and mutated, developed two different narratives since it has two different settings, and basically turned into a ball of gleeful fun that I am now organizing a bit here so that it's easier for people to read!Please expect certain details in this AU to change over time as new ideas are presented and it grows more and more detailed with each new random idea I have or question I'm asked!
Relationships: Ayasato Chihiro | Mia Fey/Houzuki Tomoe | Lana Skye, Ayasato Chihiro | Mia Fey/Kaminogi Souryuu | Diego Armando, Houzuki Tomoe | Lana Skye/Ayasato Chihiro | Mia Fey/Kaminogi Souryuu | Diego Armando, Ichiyanagi Yumihiko | Sebastian Debeste & Mitsurugi Reiji | Miles Edgeworth, Kaminogi Souryuu | Diego Armando & Houzuki Tomoe | Lana Skye, Kidzuki Mari | Metis Cykes/Yuugami Kaguya | Aura Blackquill, Mitsurugi Reiji | Miles Edgeworth/Naruhodou Ryuuichi | Phoenix Wright
Comments: 167
Kudos: 93





	1. It Begins

If the Ace Attorney characters are benders, what elements will they be? (they can also be non benders or the Avatar, it's your choice)

[justanother--fan](https://justanother--fan.tumblr.com/)

Ah, yes, the question I’ve been thinking about for actual, literal months, because I am a _huge_ nerd (and take pride in that fact)! Here’s the conclusions I’ve come up with:

For Phoenix, I’d say either fire or non-bender. If he is indeed fire, then he’s absolutely as much as a combination prodigy/disaster with it as he is with being a lawyer, a disorganized mess for whom traditional bending practices don’t help much, but who still manages to have decent enough control over his element. He has absolutely set himself on fire more than once.

For Edgeworth I gotta say earth. He’s got that stubborn, unyielding quality you need to be a good earth-bender. However, while he has a strong talent with it, I’d say he was raised by either a different element or else non-benders who look down on bending, so all this potential he has with it got ignored for a long time. Post DL-6 he probably starts learning again, and by the time Dual Destinies rolls around he’s achieved true comfort with and mastery of his element.

Franziska von Karma is the most badass of badass non-benders and she is coming for your pressure points, your chi, and your soul. Can be a real learning opportunity to spar with, but do not engage if you have actually angered her, she’ll leave you drooling on the floor and she’ll wait awhile to tell anyone.

Trucy’s an airbender, and she uses it less in her show than anyone suspects, but she _absolutely_ uses it all the time in her day-to-day life. Phoenix has a lot of heart attacks when she first comes into his life and is still learning, and she has her mastery arrows by the time she’s fourteen, so her hair’s shorter than it is in canon for the AA:AJ events, since it’s still growing back.

Speaking even indirectly of Apollo, he’s the Avatar, and no one notices until Dual Destinies, including Apollo himself, he always thought he was just a vaguely inept airbender. He doesn’t even have his arrows yet because, while powerful as heck, he lacks the control required for mastery. Part of the reason no one’s noticed he’s the avatar is that his experiences in Khura’in and the foster system have left him with some pretty severe mental/spiritual blocks. He’s beginning to work through them by the time SoJ rolls around, has started refining his airbending, and also started on water.

Klavier’s a firebender, and he’s not very powerful but he has control like _whoa_ man, he has _nailed_ this whole being-a-bender thing, and he is _super insulted_ that everyone automatically assumes that he set his own guitar on fire, that’s absurd, he hasn’t accidentally set anything on fire since he was twelve-!!!

Call me crazy, but Simon Blackquill strikes me as the waterbender of the group. He shapes himself to the situations he’s in and just… I don’t have a lot of explanation for this one, it’s a gut feeling, feels right, yo. (Post-conviction there’s a lot of rumors that he blood bends, joke’s on them, he not only considers that sort of bending vile but thinks that, if you have to resort to that level, you’re just admitting you can’t win without doing so).

Athena’s another badass non-bender, but she’s light enough on her feet that a lot of people mistake her for an airbender. Her movement style is actually more like waterbending, however, as she used to follow along a bit when her mother was teaching Simon.

Sebastian DeBeste is just a regular old non-bender, he does not want to fight, he wants to music, and also law, this boy cannot throw a punch to save his life, but that’s okay because he’s got some powerful friends and they will wreck your shit if you mess with him, especially Kay, she won’t even have to resort to bending to do it, say good-bye to your existence online, jerk.

Speaking of Kay, airbender seems the obvious choice with her, but I can also see her as water or fire - the girl’s flexible for which element would suit her best. Heck, if Apollo’s not the avatar, she could be, and I would _pay_ to see the hijinks avatar Kay got up to. No matter what she is, though, she’s good at it.

Maya I think is another non-bender, but with _major_ spirit world connections, girl can just sit down breathe in, breathe out, boom, spirit journeying now, back later, send burgers. Same goes with Pearl, only even moreso, and also with the full intentions to one day punch Koh in every single one of his faces.

Larry… I feel like Larry’s a bender, but he never freaking _did_ anything with his bending? He just wasn’t that interested in it, there were always other things catching his interest, like art, and girls, and acting, and trying to hold down a job. The joke in this universe, instead of ‘if something stinks, it’s usually the Butz,’ is that he’s actually a disaster-bender.

For Godot, I’d say firebender, and he absolutely uses it to keep his coffee nice and hot. He used to be pretty good at it, but the poison and extended coma messed with his chi pathways as well. Those, along with some mental and emotional blocks, mean he now has a very hard time producing fire.

Aaaaaand that’s everyone I can think of at the moment! Hope you enjoyed my thoughts on the matter, thanks for the question! ^U^


	2. What's up with Larry?

quantum27: Everyone knows larry's a bender.....but no one knows what he bends,,,, could be such a good running gag. Maybe Phoenix and Miles know or maybe they don't but uhhhh yeah. sorry the thought just tickled me. (Worst idea ala, the most funny to me, version of this is that Larry is actually the avatar) I'm sorry :D

[@quantum27](https://tmblr.co/m6vK-7ZlExCtky3ZdHOjStQ) You’re right and you should say it! 8O That would be an AMAZING running gag, especially if it’s paired with a bunch of events that _could_ be him bending but could also be coincidences, and nothing’s ever _confirmed_ and it would be _wonderful_!!! And, XD, Avatar Larry, that would be such a nightmare, I love it, and then we’d have Phoenix teaching him fire and Miles teaching him earth and Trucy teaching him air and… dang, Simon’s the waterbender, SCARY WATERBENDING TEACHER SIMON, it would be _amazing_ , please don’t apologize, I love this, thank-you for sharing!!!

any ideas about larry's "disaster-bender" antics in the avatar setting?

Anonymous

The usual sort of Larry antics - love-at-first-sight-itis, breaking stuff by mistake, getting accused of crimes he didn’t commit, inadvertently spawning sightings of local mythical creatures/cryptids, tripping into the Spirit World and needing to be fished out, having a bounty place on his head for Crimes Against Cabbages.

You know, the usual. ;)


	3. Setting

for the ace avatar au... is the general setting the ace attorney setting or the avatar setting? are there still court cases? is dl-6? a thing???

Anonymous

Much fun as tossing the entire gang into the Avatar universe would be, for the Ace Avatar AU I’m leaning more towards “Ace Attorney setting, but now with bending.” There are definitely still court cases, and, even if someone makes a really good case for it and I cave and the whole kit ‘n’ kaboodle are moved to a more Avatar-esque setting, there’s still _some_ sort of DL-6-parallel incident.

…

…okay, actually, two forks this AU could take, one where the setting’s more Ace Attorney and all the canon cases and events take place, and one that’s more Avatar, and we have members of the group traveling the world helping Avatar Apollo/Kay/Larry/Whoever we think would lead to the best hijinks learn the four elements and in this one, even if Gregory still dies, Miles grows up in a healthier environment and thus masters his element eariler. Maybe set this period earlier in the Avatar Cycle than Aang, so no metal bending but also no fire war. Feel free to send asks/opinions for either branch, and thanks for this ask!


	4. Unecessary bending

i've been thinking non-stop about ace avatar au... edgeworth not using bending in parallel with the way he represses "unecessary feelings"... and then later learning to accept both as parts of who he is... good stuff

Anonymous

Ooo, yes, that would be a _great_ parallel in the AA-setting version! What if- _oh_ , what if he’s kind of _reverse_ good at bending from not using it? Like, in the show we get the implications that most benders, unless they’re real masters, you get them emotional and they’re going to start bending by accident, or even just kind of accidental bending in general - scenes I’m thinking include Aang sneezing too hard and going flying in the air, Katara breaking an iceberg/Zuko melting his meditation candles when they’re angered, that sort of thing.

And, in contrast, unless you know Edgeworth’s a bender, you have no way of telling he’s a bender, the earth never shakes or rises or reacts in any way to him, no matter _how_ upset he gets, he’s got his bending that firmly locked down, it’s honestly a little creepy to most people in the know, this is _not_ normal bender behaviour, it’s a _relief_ to them when that iron control’s a little less iron by the time DD rolls around.

And a straight-up WTF?!?!? moment for everyone else, because Edgeworth’s a _what_?!? He’s a _bender_ what do you _mean_ he’s a bender benders don’t okay _wow_ yeah he just stomped and the whole building shook, not lying then, but, seriously _WTF_!??!?!?!

for the ace avatar au (which, btw, is absolutely AMAZING) do you think Edgeworth would still have trouble with earthquakes? overcoming that hurdle by accepting his bending would be an interesting process

Anonymous

Thank-you! And yes, in the AA-setting, absolutely - the initial trauma happened while he was trapped in a small, completely metal space, after all, and even if he’d been better trained at the time there would have been nothing he could do to save anyone. His own element turned against him, probably one of the reasons he works so hard to ensure that the earth never shakes beneath his feet when he loses his temper.

This would take a specialized therapist and bending master to help him work through and overcome. Because in every fandom I touch I hand out therapists like Halloween candy to everyone who needs one and, woo boy, Edgeworth _needs one_. Dr. Heilen, get over here from _Saturation_ , you’re joining the AU and also an earthbending master as well as a therapist now, congratulations!

Plus side, this would also mean that, by the time AA:AJ is over, Edgeworth’s probably way less triggered by earthquakes than he is in canon - they’re still not great, but in a ‘I need some tea and to meditate for a fifteen minutes’ way instead of an ‘unconscious on the floor now’ way, so that’s good.


	5. Firey Phoenix

ace avatar au- how does phoenix’s firebending affect plot stuff? maybe it keeps him warm when he falls in the river? maybe he even thought he could firebend the flames on the bridge out of the way but it didn’t work? maybe he does it in court for dramatic flair, and maybe he learned that from his time as a theatre major? thoughts?

Anonymous

Hmmm… in the AA-setting, he probably either thought he could put out the flames on the bridge and either failed or actually succeeded but the structural damage was already such that he fell through anyway. Plus side, that coffee would have to be _way_ hotter to bother him and he can steam himself dry once he’s wiped it off, which would probably annoy Godot enough that he stops throwing coffee and sticks to cutting remarks after that. Using fire in court probably only comes up when it’s necessary to prove a point or if he gets really flustered and starts making sparks or something by mistake, mostly because most evidence is kinda really flammable and he needs that still. Plus, he’s wearing a polyester suit, and that stuff _melts_ when overheated and caused nasty injuries.

When he’s not in court, however? He probably uses a little fire for flourish or emphasis all the time, and Trucy just _adores_ watching her daddy bend and is working on a million tricks to make it look like she’s doing the same thing he is, even though she’s an airbender, and one of the things they bond over in this universe is how theatrical they both like to be with their bending.

In the Avatar-setting branch of this AU, I think Phoenix is straight-up training to be a performer, a combination of acting and bending, and his control and skill are actually a lot finer in this setting because he practices with his bending more and works harder to master it, figure out the limits of what he can do with it, try and alter the colour of his flames with various techniques, all that passion and gung-ho attitude he has for lawyering, except channeled into basically being a living fireworks display. He embodies the joyful aspects of firebending to their fullest extent. Can he fight? Eh, maybe a little, but not really, that’s not his focus here.

justanother--fan asked: (Ace Attorney Setting) Remember when Phoenix fell from a burning bridge? Did the fact that he firebends help him survive?

Honestly? No, it didn’t. He may have used it a bit on the bridge itself to better protect himself from the flames, and even extinguish patches of them, but he’s a high mid-range strength bender - he’s nowhere near powerful enough to pull off Azula’s flying-with-fire trick. And he fell forty feet into cold water - if he’d entered that water from the shore then yes, he might have been able to regulate his body heat to survive it better, but he didn’t do that, he plummeted into it, and likely got shocked from the impact as much as the sudden cold, and both would have left him unable to focus enough to bend in any useful manner.

**TL;DR:** not even magical fire powers are enough to explain Phoenix’s unrivaled survival powers. ;)


	6. The Gumshoe Question

Hi again, Tricksteeer! Is our Scruffy Detective also a bender?

[justanother--fan](https://justanother--fan.tumblr.com/)

Hallo! You know, I don’t know? I can see him being another earthbender, or maybe a non-bender… hmmm…

I’m not sure, HEY EVERYONE, opinions on what Detective Gumshoe would be in an Avatar setting? I am open to all suggestions, please share them!

gumshoe seems like a waterbender to me... very go-with-the-flow, except when he’s taking a stand for someone he cares about (which is often).

Anonymous

Anonymous said: Look, it might be because Ace Avatar AU is too big brain for any of us to handle lol. Now, that being said, Gumshoe would be a water bender cause he is so adaptable to change. He would be your average bender until he started learning the cool things, in which he will show them off ALL THE TIME (even when he already showed the same trick several times). And he wouldn't bend often, unless 1) someone is in danger or 2) he does it to try impress someone.

rjmeta: honestly I can see him being a swampbender tbh

Okay, so that’s everyone voting for waterbender Gumshoe and, ooooooo, I like the idea of him being a swampbender specifically, I love those guys, Gumshoe is officially a swampbender in the Ace Avatar AU!

(Also, thank-you ^///^)

Thanks for the feedback!


	7. Avatar-setting

I’m a little surprised I’m not getting more asks about the Avatar-setting version of the Ace Avatar AU, just because that’s the setting where we can have twenty-year-old fire performer Phoenix and twenty-year-old earthbender Miles who’s either planning to join the town guard or whatever passes for the legal system in the AtLA universe, and nine-year-old Apollo on the run with tiny two-year-old Trucy (which means we also get ten-year-old Klavier and thirteen-year-old Simon and Maya and Fran), so we have the potential for _two barely-adults and Larry_ **_and_** _a group of kids_ to be running around the world trying to teach the tiny avatar to master all four elements before catastrophe strikes.

Think of the hijinks.

Think of the _character designs_.

It would be _amazing_.

in the avatar setting version, what catastrophe is the avatar supposed to prevent?

Anonymous

I’m not sure there is a catastrophe to prevent in this one, at least not on the scale of the Fire Nation from the original show, but I’m vaguely thinking we’ve got a bunch of the AA villains grouping together to make a bid for power somehow. And instead of trying to kill off the Avatar, since they know the current one is very young, they’re trying to get him under their control, because think about what it would be like if you could get the _Avatar_ working for you! So they did some sort of dark spirit pact or ritual to find out who the new Avatar is and go to ‘safely remove’ him from his current location, for his own safety, gotta get them indebted to you young.

Only Apollo showed up at the wrong time, panicked hard, assumed his temple was under attack, grabbed the first kid he saw (aka Trucy) and legged it for parts unknown. You ever try to catch a tiny, panic-fueled airbending avatar who doesn’t know they’re the avatar? Spoilers: you don’t.

Cue Apollo and Trucy ending up where Phoenix and Miles live, cue him trying to give them Trucy because she’s _two_ she needs _adults_ he’s _nine_ -

**Phoenix:** Miles, Agni has blessed us with a daughter, we’re parents now!

**Miles:** If anyone blesses us it would be Oma and Shu, and no we are not, we’re twenty, give me that thing, Phoenix, you’re holding it wrong, you have to support them like- oh, she fell asleep on me, I- um. …<3

And then we go on a sprint around the world trying to figure out why these people are chasing us and also picking up friends and allies and stuff along the way, it’s great, I had about 2% of this thought out before you asked me this, thank-you for the ask! ^U^

Once we start seriously adding to the party this is going to get hilariously awkward, too, Apollo’s nine, if he has a sky bison, then it’s big enough for maybe him and Trucy and that’s _it_ , we do not have an Appa equivalent in this, we have Miles, Phoenix, and Larry trying to run herd on like eight kids, the oldest of whom are all thirteen. They are a disorganized _mess_ , we do not have a Gaang in this version of the AU, we have a traveling orphanage/circus and three young adults who are feeling like much younger adults than they were when they started all this.

Also, no one in the Ace Benders knows why these people are chasing them, _none of them_ know Apollo’s the avatar, including Apollo, he’s _nine_ , for all they know these people were after _everyone_ in his temple, or maybe they’re after Trucy, but no one’s sticking around to find out.

And none of them find out or figure out Apollo’s the avatar until they have most of the group and they’ve all started cross-training bending styles because Sebastian wanted to, and then Klavier and Kay got interested, and then everyone was doing it, and then Apollo bent something that wasn’t air and there was a lot of screaming, eventually followed by a realization of, “Oh, this _might_ have something to do with why people keep chasing us.”

Then we get to go Acquire a Simon, because, ironically, mixed as their group is, they don’t have any waterbenders yet and that comes after air, and “Look, we may not have any idea what we’re doing but apparently we’re raising the avatar for the moment so we should at least _try_ to give him a balanced group of influences even if he’s not learning other bending styles yet!!!”

And then the waterbender who chooses to join them is thirteen. Because of course he is, thinking they’d get an _actual, functioning adult_ was really just wistful thinking on Phoenix and Miles’s part…


	8. Watery Twisted Samurai

ace avatar au - y'know what i think would be neat? if, before being arrested, simon trained in the use of healing bending and hid that ability while in jail. everyone's screaming abt "the twisted samurai is a bloodbender!!" and simon's just sat quietly in the corner of his cell silently horrified as he heals his wounds from the latest fight

Anonymous

I like how you think, anon, yes, AU canon, he absolutely does this! Bonus points, he never uses his healing knowledge when he’s psyching his opponents out in court, he could, it would be easy, but he sticks to mundane, non-bending gallows humour and threats like he does in typical canon. He wants people to think he’s a monster, yes, but not _that much_ of a monster, ew, what is wrong with these people?!?


	9. Phoenix and Miles vs Anyone

Honestly I'm just thinking about how good of a fighting duo Miles and Phoenix would be, even though u said Phoenix isnt into combat, and their development of a good dual fighting style, getting earthbending to work with fire, i like the idea of them developing that together :') and creating a pretty aggressive style to work together, it makes me think of Bolin from LoK, also! as a side note would you see Dahlia and Iris as people would be like Ty lee and good with chi blocking?

[sangrientojoe](https://sangrientojoe.tumblr.com/)

They probably do work pretty well together in a fight, you’re right! It’s likely that people fighting them for the first time think that Phoenix is the more dangerous one, just because fire is easy to be dangerous with, but in actuality he is the world’s biggest, flashiest distraction and while you were focusing on him and blinking the spots out of your eyes from that stupid-bright flame he just bent, Miles has sunk you up to your neck in the ground, or dropped half a hillside on you, or cuffed your hands and ankles together with rock, and they’re just a pain to fight together, okay, separate them, separate them if you want to win.

Don’t separate them by knocking out the firebender, the earthbender takes _personal offense_ to you knocking out his boyfriend like that, that was a bad move on your part. 8/

I see Dahlia being more interested in knives and stuff, like Mai. Except hers are poisoned, naturally, so don’t even let them graze you, that’s all it takes. Heck, Dahlia probably fakes being worse at knife throwing than she actually is just so people will let their guard down around her and she can get to them like that. Dahlia would be like that assassin who infiltrated nobles’ homes by posing as a courtesan and then giving them a kitten whose claws she had coated in poison, that’s the sort of person she would be. Iris probably also uses knives, but unpoisoned.


	10. Villains!

speaking of villains, what kind of bending do all the AA villains use?

Anonymous

…I really don’t know? Going to open the floor to suggestions again for this one, since that worked out really well for Gumshoe. Klavier’s a firebender, so Kristoph is probably either a firebender or a super-resentful non-bender, but beyond that I don’t know.

about the villains... i feel like manfred von karma would be a non-bender who forced edgeworth to suppress his own bending. damon gant is a firebender who acts all friendly & only uses soft, warm flames until his breakdown, when he pulls out the lightning (which works into his actual breakdown in the games). no idea about the rest

Anonymous

Yeah, that works, especially with Franziska as a chi-blocker in this AU. In the AA-setting, this probably manifests as a carefully-hidden dislike of benders, in the Avatar-setting he’s probably openly anti-bender and Franziska ending up on team Circus Orphanage is probably a result of her stowing away in the group to try and do something nefarious to ‘make Papa proud,’ but then she gets _integrated_ , to her ~~unexpected delight~~ horror.

I like fire for Gant, too, that works well in both settings, in the Avatar-setting he’s probably part of the group trying to capture the avatar for their own use.

Dahlia is an air bender. Um I don't really know how to explain it. I mean, her personality could be seen as like v changing thing, so idkkk why my brain went air bender

[thefandomgirl17](https://thefandomgirl17.tumblr.com/)

I can see that! In this AU I have her marked as a non-bender who uses knives like Mai, but poisoned (mentioned it in a post before the one asking for villain input, should have mentioned there). I feel it works well with her being a Fey without spiritual power, she doesn’t have anything beyond what a regular human has, and she’s all the more dangerous for it. Good idea, though, she’d be a crazy effective (and terrifying) airbender!

may i suggest with Kristoph being a very weak firebender to the point everyone thinks he's a nonbender? idk if that works with Kristoph but the idea of having like. a family member being more powerful and like Phoenix and just. Jealousy and Resentment? yeah. Nice villain vibes

[quantum27](https://quantum27.tumblr.com/)

Oooo, yes, he’d hate that, we’re doing it! It’s the one thing that, no matter what he does, he just can’t better automatically better at than Klavier and he _hates it,_ and he subtly undermines Klavier’s confidence in his own bending every chance he gets. And then there’s Phoenix who’s just, like… he’s a decent enough bender, strength-wise, he does stuff with ease that takes Kristoph an unacceptable amount of effort, he is Not Okay with that.

In the AA-setting, this is just another thing that fuels his hate and resentment against Phoenix. In the Avatar-setting the creep is 16/17ish, and he despises Phoenix for being a decent-strength bender who _wastes_ his abilities on- on such _trivialities_ as _performance art_. Getting in on the power grab with the ‘make the Avatar loyal to us group’ sounds nice, but that _and_ the chance to potentially destroy Phoenix? Sign him up.

In contrast, in the Avatar-setting, Klavier takes one look at Phoenix’s bending and goes “ **That** , that is **what I want to be** , but with music instead of acting, can I do that?!?” Yeah, he becomes good friends with Apollo, it’s ten-year-old Klavier, he’s young and fluffy and friendly, but he initially joins the group because, “YOU! TEACH ME YOUR FIREBENDING WAYS! PLEASE!!! I AM A YOUNG AND UNTALENTED BENDER BUT I WILL BE A VERY GOOD STUDENT, YES!!!”

This also eventually leads Klavier to discovering that he is, actually, a good bender, his only real issue is the crippling self-doubt his brother’s been instilling in him for years.

Thanks for the suggestion!

Or maybe Franziska (antagonist this time around) uses the tracking device she put on Gummy's jacket on the second game! I was also thinking about the parallels between Miles-Zuko, Franziska-Azula and Manfred- F.L Ozai for some reason?

[justanother--fan](https://justanother--fan.tumblr.com/)

I don’t think they have that kind of tech in the Avatar world, so probably not. Canon Miles and Zuko definitely have some solid parallels, and in the Avatar-setting I think Franziska would probably end up being a combination of Azula and Zuko in terms of characterization and character arc. As for Manfred, the way I’m seeing him in the Avatar-setting, he’s more in align with that guy from season one of Korra, but without any freaky powers to back himself up other than maybe chi-blocking, since Franziska knows it.

Will Redd White still be running his blackmail-- er Bluecorp in the Ace Avatar Universe?

[justanother--fan](https://justanother--fan.tumblr.com/)

Naturally. The name’s probably a bit different, since ‘Bluecorp’ isn’t the sort of thing we have in the Avatar-setting yet (you have no idea how tempted I am to name his business ‘Blue Sun’ in this), but he’s definitely a very prominent, successful businessman who owns a lot of property ~~and a lot of peoples’ lives if they don’t do what he wants them to~~ and is a perfectly agreeable, friendly guy who’s given a lot of people in need of help a leg up ~~out of the frying pan and into the fire~~ , really he’s a model citizen and an example to the community and anyone who says otherwise ~~doesn’t say it for very long~~ is wrong!

Also, I think, in terms of nationality, he’s like Larry - came from a sailing family originally that’s lost track of who’s parent came from which nation. He grew from a hand on his father’s boat to owning his own trading fleet - small in comparison to one from Aang’s time period, but quite large for this era.


	11. Edgeworth and children

hhhh i love the ace avatar au so much! based on what you've posted so far: i feel like, if edgeworth is going to be as closed off at the start of the au as he was at the start of the AA games, taking care of the little kids is probably the only thing that keeps him from running away at first... but eventually, he has to open up about things... good content!!

Anonymous

Thank-you! And this AU actually has two branches - AA-setting and Avatar-setting. In AA-setting, it’s basically the games but with bending added, so he’s his canon self. In the Avatar-setting, with the kids, I think this is a ‘Gregory lives’ version of events, so while he’s a little prim and proper (because he wants to go into either law or law enforcement), he’s much more in line with his sequel-trilogy characterization from the very start. The kids definitely do have a good effect on him, though, he’s 100% on board with adopting Trucy and everyone else by the time the dust settles. :)


	12. Who joins next?

(ace avatar au) who joins the party next, after Apollo and Trucy? and was Larry there from the start, or does he show up later?

Anonymous

Larry’s not quite there from the start, but it’s a close thing - he Pippin and Merrys his way into this adventure by accidentally crossing paths with the group on the road not far from their town, initially plans to just walk with them for a bit because he’s got a date but if you guys are going away for awhile I’m gonna say good-bye proper first, and then one of the people tracking Apollo catches up to them and the next thing Larry knows they’re on a barge, why are they on a barge, no one knows but they’ve lost the tracker and apparently he’s doing this now, cool.

As for who joins next… hmm. I’m torn between Maya and Klavier, it feels like one of them would be the next to show. Phoenix and Miles probably come from a coastal village in the Earth Kingdom that’s not too far away from the Fire Nation, so there’s a decent amount of cultural mixing going on there, a few families who are technically Fire Nation but have lived here for a few generations, some of the Earth Kingdom people have relatives who live in the Fire Nation, that sort of thing. So Simon’s going to be later in the game, because he’s at one of the poles, Franziska has to be a bit later in the game, because she probably starts as an antagonist and then joins the group, and Kay can show up whenever she wants to, by right of being Kay, as can Sebastian if he joins in this. …let’s be real, Sebastian’s showing up in this, because I love him.

Also, it just occurred to me, I think the Feys are probably going to be in the Swamp in the Avatar-setting, non necessarily benders, but wildly in touch with the Spirit World, so we’ll have to go there to get Maya. Unless she ran off on a journey of enlightenment and self-discovery or something.


	13. Well 'Gaang' is already taken, so...

And they can call their travelling circus "The Wright Travelling Agency"!

[justanother--fan](https://justanother--fan.tumblr.com/)

Phoenix suggests that name and gets shot down, because “We’re not an agency, Phoenix, we’re not a business of any sort, the closest descriptor to what our group is that isn’t ‘circus’ or ‘traveling orphanage’ is probably ‘menace.’” While more apt, the suggestion of ‘The Apollo-gies’ is also shot down, because Apollo hates it, even if they are constantly apologizing every where they go for the sheer chaos they bring and leave in their wake.

Miles actually makes a whole bunch of punny name suggestions just to be annoying, but they probably settle on something like ‘Ace Benders,’ because Miles and Phoenix hire out their bending abilities to earn money for food and stuff when they’re around people.

(If someone can think of a name along those lines that’s better, please share it, my titling skills are normal for a writer, which is to say very bad. The Wright Traveling Agency is honestly fun, but it doesn’t quite work in the setting, especially when Miles and Phoenix view each other as complete equals in this endeavor, and adding Miles’s name to that makes it too wordy)


	14. Blooming Fire

Been thinking about Phoenix’s bending in the Avatar-setting of the Ace Avatar AU, and I think something I’m going to go with in this is that he can change the colour of his fire if he puts the effort in, based on a combo of Azula’s flames being blue from their intensity and Zuko’s comment about seeing so many different colours in the dragon fire.

Now, I’m having Phoenix as mid-to-sorta-strong bender in this, so mostly this is shown by him being able to control how red, orange, yellow, or white his fire is, and he can use this to create patterns. His real party trick, however, is being able to make a ‘blossom’ of red-orange fire in his hands with a blue center. It takes a lot of energy and concentration, and he absolutely cannot pull out this hot a flame in battle or even in any larger quantities, but it looks amazing and he’s really proud of it.


	15. The Look of the Thing

Wait, Apollo’s _nine_ in the Avatar-setting Ace Avatar AU, no way he has his airbending master arrows yet, oh my gods, Miles would 100% suggest changing Apollo’s appearance to help disguise him, let his hair grow out a bit (“not much, you can keep it short and shave it again as soon as you’re safe,” Phoenix reassures) and they lend him one of their spare shirts until they can get him some different clothes and Apollo _finally_ gets an excuse to give in to his secret lifelong desire to wear red, so Phoenix is the one who has to wash his shirt every night or just not wear both layers the next day (Miles isn’t saying anything, but he quietly approves and Phoenix knows he does, no shirt days always somehow involve more flexing and preening than Phoenix-wearing-a-shirt days do).

[ ](https://isdisorigionalenoughforyou.tumblr.com/post/623245601434451968) [ isdisorigionalenoughforyou ](https://isdisorigionalenoughforyou.tumblr.com/post/623245601434451968)

Now i’m wondering how many of the kids would be joining the Wacky Avatar Circus Gang partially because one of their life’s goals is to wear a color other than their native nationality’s. 

does purple exist in atla? is the fashion all imported from ace attorney, or is it from the east like it is in the show? do the von karmas still have their frills or do they prefer fancy hats??? i need to know. 

[ ](https://greentrickster.tumblr.com/post/623279819338252288) [ greentrickster ](https://greentrickster.tumblr.com/post/623279819338252288)

Usually not their only reason, but they’re definitely taking advantage of the opportunity once they get there! I think the Northern Water Tribe tends to have a purpler blue than the Southern, so they probably have purple as well, and you can bet when Klavier encounters purple it’s love at first sight, he’s ten and he’s head over heels, everyone is absolutely charmed over how enthusiastic he is.

The Avatar-setting 100% involves Avatar-world clothes, I am _not_ passing up the opportunity to dress the AA gang in those gorgeous, gorgeous styles, if anyone wants to design the group some clothes be my guest, that would be _wonderful_! The von Karmas probably don’t have their frills, since that’s very much a Western style, and I’m not sure what the Eastern equivalent would be.


	16. Sebastian the non-bender

Bro I don't think you've realized the gravity of angst you accidentally created that Sebastian, a non bender, is the son of Blaise, probably one of the most powerful firebenders in the world. Really just makes Blaise's constant belittling of his son even worse. It's a miracle Sebastian made it into his teen years

Anonymous

Ah, but you forget, Blaise wanted his son to have an ego on him, remember how Sebastian was up until Blaise revealed that none of Sebastian’s accomplishments were his own? I don’t know how he convinces Sebastian that he can actually bend, but I would 100% bet he did, maybe Sebbie’s mom was an earthbender and he convinced Sebbie he could earthbend like his mom, that feels like it would be easier to have someone subtly doing so it looks like another person was doing it. He absolutely survives his teen years thinking he’s the best at earthbending… only to have it revealed to himself and the world that he can’t bend at all when he’s 17.

Except then he gets Prosecutor Edgeworth, who is a legit genius and an actual earthbender himself, coming up and telling him that it doesn’t matter. Not being able to bend doesn’t make him _less_ , and there are still things to be learned from bending forms even if you’re a non-bender. You can still do this and I will stand beside you if you do.

Sebastian definitely requires some therapy to deal with the mental and emotional backlash from this revelation, but he doesn’t quit on the law, and he doesn’t give up on practicing his earthbending forms. In fact, now that he knows the truth, he gets way better at both, and also starts studying firebending and waterbending forms from Klavier and Simon when he gets to be friends with them (as he does in every AA AU I will ever create), and he becomes stronger for it.

Now, in the Avatar-setting Sebbie’s only 10, and, hm. I’m not sure _how_ he finds out that his dad is lying to him, but the Ace Benders show up and he absolutely does, confronts his dad on it, and then runs away with the Ace Benders when his dad fully reveals his true colours, where he again starts studying multiple styles of bending forms because he wants to and because Master Miles Said He Could.


	17. Witnesses?

do any of the witnesses, defendants, or victims show up in the avatar setting au? and do you have any headcanons about what kind of benders they'd be?

Anonymous

Oh almost certainly! Because, I mean… why not? The Avatar-setting is literally just tossing people from AA into the Avatar world, everyone’s invited! As for what kind of benders they’d be… I’d assume most of them are non-benders, to be honest, just because non-benders seem to be the majority in the Avatar world and I try to at least keep that in mind whenever I do Avatar AUs, and also because Sokka, Suki, Mai, and Ty Lee are all completely awesome in regards to their fighting abilities. Like, heck, I will fight someone will magical element powers, don’t make me fight Mai, I’m scared. 8( If anyone has any suggestions or headcanons, feel free to shout ‘em out!

Oh! It has been confirmed that Dahlia and Iris are non-benders in these universes, Iris of the nice kind, Dahlia of the ‘Azula approves’ kind.

what does lotta hart do in the avatar world... i'm almost scared to think about it, she's so chaotic

Anonymous

Professional gossip and matchmaker, somehow talked her way into acquiring a sky bison even though she’s not a bender, she can appear anywhere at any time, no one is safe.

How about Lotta Hart being like the Cabbage Merchant but instead, she'll be like. "MY SCOOOOOOOOP!" A rather knowledgable C̶a̶b̶b̶a̶g̶e̶ ̶M̶e̶r̶c̶h̶a̶n̶t̶ Journalist (didja get the Ember Island Players reference? Hehe)

[justanother--fan](https://justanother--fan.tumblr.com/)

XD We’ve already got a group of as-yet unnamed traveling actors in the Avatar-setting getting cabbage manned as they more and more desperately try to put on a play about that classical hero, the Steel Samurai, his ally, the Pink Princess, and their enemy, the Evil Magistrate, but, hey, the more the merrier!

Lotta’s also already flying around in the Avatar-setting on a sky bison she talked her way into owning (in spite of not being a bender of any sort) and works as a professional gossip and matchmaker… this could be ‘why the matchmaking,’ because she keeps getting scooped on her gossip!

Where is the immortal Wendy Oldbag in this AU?

[justanother--fan](https://justanother--fan.tumblr.com/)

Gonna assume you mean the Ace Avatar AU and she is, naturally, an Earth Kingdom guard in the Avatar-setting version… and a chi-blocker. Run, Miles. Now run faster, she’s gaining.

…also I’m not gonna do this, because I already said I’m not doing this, but it would also be really funny if Oldbag was the avatar before Apollo and comes out sometimes specifically to flirt with Miles, that would be _hilarious_ and I had to share.


	18. Steel Samurai Spirit

would the steel samurai be a thing in the avatar au? because my first thought was that it was a stageplay/ongoing series of stageplays done ala the ember island players, my second thought was a traveling stageshow that always seems to end up performing where the group does. also, the idea of the writers for it deciding to take inspiration from avatar and co shenanigans or just mirroring them coincidently seems like it would be funny. or them getting cabbage-man'd every performance somehow?

Anonymous

In the AA-setting it’s definitely still a thing and Edgeworth is definitely a huge fan.

In the Avatar-setting… I don’t know. Probably they’re mythological figures in that one, like the Blue Spirit sort of is in AtLA, so there’s multiple stories and renditions of them. I would _definitely_ be up for there being a group of traveling players constantly showing up to try and perform one of the more popular plays about them and constantly getting cabbage-man’d, bonus points if they’re a little bit shabbier every time we see them!

As for taking inspiration from the avatar’s shenanigans… probably not. Just because almost no one knows who the avatar is, _including_ every single member of the Ace Benders, Apollo’s nine, he absolutely has no idea why these people are after him, he didn’t stick around to find out, he just grabbed Trucy and legged it. As far as he knows _everyone_ from his being temple is being hunted down too, heck, they could actually be after Trucy, that’s bad, she is only little!!!

So basically Apollo and the Ace Benders are running all over the world, trailing chaos in their wake, slowly gathering a group of qualified bending teachers, and not even realizing that they’ve done this or need to do this until something happens to make Apollo avatar up. He’s nine, it’s specifically stated that most avatars aren’t told (and thus presumably don’t begin their training in other elements) until they’re sixteen.

…oh man, actually, I bet it happens because of Sebastian, they find out because Sebastian joins the group and, after a bit, starts learning bending moves from other elements as well as earth and everyone else goes “Know what? Looks fun” and form the first ever Mixed Bending Arts group, except Apollo tries a move from another bending style and actually bends something.

Hi! Out of context steel samurai anon (whose first ask got eaten by tumblr). I was saying that your mention of the steel samurai being like the blue spirit made me want a blue spirit/painted lady thing where someone in the party dresses up as the steel samurai for a stealth mission without telling the others. First idea was Edgeworth disguising himself & then realized Larry disguising himself like in AAI1 (shocking Edgeworth, who, as a super fan, believed the spirit had returned) could work too.

Anonymous

Ah, hello, thank-you for re-submitting! And, while that does sound fun, I’m trying to do things differently than the events we get in AtLA canon for the Gaang, just because those events are still canon for this AU, they just haven’t happened yet.

That doesn’t mean we can’t still have dressing-up-as-Steel-Samurai hijinks, though! After all, we’ve got both Phoenix and Larry in the Ace Benders, and they’re both good actors, along with Klavier joining in eventually. So, for the Ace Benders, I think what’s most likely to happen is that they get to a town holding a festival, and part of it is that they’re putting on a performance of one of the Steel Samurai stories. Bad news? The actor playing Steel Samurai is out of commission at the last moment - unfortunate accident or ate some food from a sketchy stall, something like that. The good news? The Ace Benders are here and have heard about the dilemma, and they’re willing to help! The best news? While not a huge fan of the stories himself, Phoenix has _every single line memorized_ , because Miles has been dragging him to the plays their entire lives, and he also knows that if he doesn’t step up and volunteer to do the performance, Miles will sulk at him for weeks.

And that’s how Phoenix ends up playing the Steel Samurai that one time while Miles sits dead center in the first row that has adults instead of children, holding Trucy and with the biggest smile on his face, because that’s his boyfriend up there playing his hero and this is a Good Day.

Thanks for the ask, and for persevering in the face of tumblr!


	19. They Still Don't Know They're Siblings

in the atla version of the avatar au, first: are trucy and apollo related still? second: when apollo grows his hair out, do his spikes just grow out faster than the rest of his hair or a result of a haircut after its grown out for a while? itd be interesting if he subconsiously kept them up with airbending when they grew long enough to fall in his face

Anonymous

Yup, they’re still related! Thalassa and Jove both live at the same temple as Apollo and Trucy are fleeing from and… I don’t know what airbenders did in regards to relationships, I can’t remember it really being touched on, so I’m going with, in this version at least, the general practice is just a consensual free-lovin’ kinda groove. So, Jove and Thalassa are actually both alive in this one and in a committed but open relationship with each other. Zak is a traveler who Thalassa had some fun with for a bit while he stayed at the temple, and Jove knew and was cool with it.

Do Apollo and Trucy know Thalassa is their mom and Jove is Apollo’s dad? Harder question, I get the impression that children were more raised by the community than specifically the people who birthed them and that maybe parents weren’t considered as important as a result? Because big group effort to raise the kids? I don’t know, AtLA canon as far as I know it is unclear on this point. I think even if they don’t know who their parents are or that they’re related, Apollo and Trucy would still have ended up getting along well with each other, and also Thalassa and Jove.

In regards to Apollo’s hair: even in canon, if you look closely, Apollo’s spikes tend to be shorter than the rest of his hair, he’s got them gelled up and the rest gelled back. So I think what happens here is that his two little spikes are just these annoying little cowlicks that won’t lie flat at first even when the rest of his hair starts to, and by the time the got long enough to start drooping under their own weight Apollo had decided he liked them and either found some sort of gel or uses airbending like you suggested to keep them up.


	20. Prior Avatars

in the avatar au in either setting would the previous avatar be someone from ace attorney or someone random? in the atla setting how long has the group hunting the avatar been around? did they form not long before they started chasing down apollo or have they been around a while and only recently learned who the avatar is?

Anonymous

In both versions it would be someone random, especially because in the Avatar-setting this takes place before Aang’s time, let’s say one cycle before the female airbending avatar before Aang, so Apollo was the air avatar before her. Part of why I have carefully not been including metalbending in any way, cool as it is, that’s Toph’s thing, can’t steal her thunder ~~because she will hunt me down and fill me with Regret for doing so~~.

As for the group who wants control over the avatar, I think they’ve been around since the previous avatar died. It originally started as a few power-hungry allies/associates sitting around one evening over a bottle of something good chatting about their current schemes, and someone mentioned how the last avatar was a pain and it’d be nice to have the new one under their thumb, haha, that’s crazy talk, unless-. They spent the next nine years locating the avatar and also planning how to do this, that’s the thing about AA main villains, they’re all really good at planning. Kristoph’s the newest and youngest member of the group and he’s running on 90% spite 10% Xanatos Gambit, and the other members can appreciate that in a young person.

justanother--fan: What if Gregory was the last Avatar?

Fun idea, but I’ve already dubbed this a ‘Gregory lives’ AU for the Avatar-setting, and I don’t want it to get too confusing by having the previous avatar be one person in one setting and another in another setting. (He’d have been a good avatar, though)

I think, instead, Gregory was a master earthbender. In the AA-setting, one of the reasons Edgeworth stopped bending so thoroughly is that Gregory was also his earthbending teacher and it felt like an even deeper betrayal to continue his studies in it when he already believed that he killed his father. When he starts training again, it not only allows him to rediscover a part of himself, but a connection to his father that he’s denied himself for too long.

In the Avatar-setting, Gregory is a master earthbender, works in the town’s legal system (whatever that is), and is also a member of the Ancient Order of the White Lotus. Heck, this setting is so far in the past in Avatar that it could be the Relatively New Order of the White Lotus…

…the Ace Benders could be the first members of the White Lotus in this universe, holy crap, that would be neat, you _know_ Miles learned Pai Sho from Gregory since we don’t have chess in this world, you _know_ he infected all the kids with it, maybe this doesn’t fit with the _exact_ canon origins of the White Lotus in AtLA, but this is an AU anyway and it would be _neat_ -! Besides, which sounds better: “We started off as a group of multi-cultural pai sho lovers who wanted to encourage international unity” or “we started off as a group of very unorganized young adults and children who accidentally when on an inter-continental life-changing field trip and kinda dragged the avatar along for the ride because none of the original members knew what they were doing.” I know which one _I’d_ tell new initiates, but that’s just me.

In any case, Gregory is alive and well and kinda worried about his son’s unexpected cross-global field trip, but also kinda not because Miles is a smart, strong boy, and Phoenix is with him, and- and so is Larry, where’s the tea, Gregory needs some soothing tea…


	21. Justine Courtney

Convincing Sebastian can bend, do you think that Justine could be his baby sitter for that very reason? Oh, but what about John though? Uh oh either way

Anonymous

Hmmm, interesting idea, but I don’t think Justine would do something like that, she’s Good People when she has all the facts. In the AA-setting she’s still keeping an eye on someone she’s been told is a very promising young prosecutor, and who has the paper trail to back it up. In the Avatar-setting… she’s probably the chief justice in an important Earth Kingdom town, and, considering Sebastian himself is ten in this setting, John’s either a baby or hasn’t been born yet. In both settings I think she’s a non-bender who specializes in countering earthbenders, going by her gavel and the fact that many earthbenders seem to use hammers as weapons.


	22. What Avatar Apollo Has Learned

The Ace Benders are going to return Apollo to whoever’s supposed to be raising him with the weirdest bending skill set _ever_. Like, “Um, so, here’s the avatar back, sorry about the mix up, it’s just there were a bunch of evil people trying to use him for nefarious purposes and we were trying to protect him and are also extremely disorganized, in spite of Miles’s best efforts. On the plus side, he’s started learning the other elements, so… that’s good, right?”

## What Apollo has actually learned:

 **From Phoenix:** the least aggressive firebending probably ever taught by a non-pacifist. Plus side, his control over the temperature of his flames is very good and he knows to respect them. Downside, he’s got it firmly rooted in his head that firebending should be as flashy as humanly possible at all times unless being used for the most mundane purposes. Lighting campfires does not count as mundane and should ideally involve at least one spin-kick.

 **From Simon:** Healing. “No, I don’t _care_ what you want to learn first or what you non-Water-Tribe Adults think I should be starting with, _he’s learning healing first_ , it’s _important_ , I have seen the madness that is the Ace Benders and while I enjoy it and am a prodigy, this is a group that needs two healers minimum at all times, how have you survived this long without _any_?!?” He also gets Apollo started on psychological warfare, because getting your enemy to surrender without throwing a punch is obviously the best solution to aggressive conflict if you don’t like violence.

 **From Miles:** the basic earthbending forms because shut _up_ , Phoenix, I don’t care if my father’s a master and I’m better than him, I’m not _officially recognized_ yet so I’m only teaching him the basics! Oh, and the avatar doesn’t wear shoes anymore, because “Earth is your elemental opposite, you need as much help with it as you can get, we are going with the direct-contact approach that doesn’t damage growing bodies.” (Yes, Miles led by example after Phoenix argued him into it, yes he hated it, no he’s not going back to shoes now if only because danged if he’s letting his suffering go to waste)

And this isn’t even _touching_ on the band of non-bending gremlins he’s traveling with.

## Further things Apollo has learned:

 **From Franziska:** how to defend yourself when someone’s chi-blocked your bending. He didn’t exactly _want_ to learn this, but Franziska decided that he was Going To and no one could stop her, Franziska has a very “the beatings will continue until moral improves” attitude and, even more importantly, never bothered with a riding crop in this setting, she has a full-sized whip, if she says you’re learning this you’re learning it.

 **From Kay:** how to walk on his hands, and whistle, and pick locks, and a lot more crime/ninja-related skills and abilities than anyone who isn’t Kay ever intended the avatar to learn, where did _she_ learn all this, _she is also nine_ -?!

 **From Sebastian:** as a result of Sebastian’s interest in Mixed Bending Arts, that he, Apollo, is the avatar. Surprise.

 **From Maya:** every single story or myth involving the Steel Samurai or one of his colleagues ever told. All of them. Also how to enter the Spirit World on a whim, because Maya is Extra Super Good at that, and it’s going to be an Important Life Skill since he’s the avatar and all, they went on several super-fun life changing field trips to the Spirit World together while the rest of the Ace Benders were busy doing other stuff, they did not inform an adult first, lots of yelling was involved once the adults were informed.


	23. Kay Faraday: ninja

ooh, I wanna hear more about Kay’s antics in the avatar world. Thoughts?

Anonymous

After much thought, I’m tapping Kay as another Bad-Ass-Non-Bender. So in the AA-setting she’s pretty much exactly like she is in canon, plus a few tricks for getting around bending while doing her Yatagarasu-ing.

In the Avatar-setting… she’s nine. And her dad’s been missing for two months when the Ace Benders find her, but it’s okay, because she’s a survivor, she just… doesn’t know where he is. It’s okay, though, she’s going to find him, honest! He’s an important officer in the Earth Kingdom navy, and Uncle Badd’s with him, so he’s probably fine? (It’s been too long since his last check-in, and he’s always been gone long times for the jobs people hire him for, but… never this long without checking in, and it’s- it’s not like she’s _scared_ , it’s just he’s been away so long…)

Did you know it is like, 90% easier to look for missing fathers when you’re traveling all over hell’s half acre with an incredibly disorganized and multicultural gang of rag-tag misfits? And that the same percentage of likelihood applies to the odds of finding and rescuing your dad, uncle, and their remaining crew from the secret island hideout of the pirates who captured them and are now using them for forced labour? Good times, good times…

(Because if Miles’s dad gets to live in this version, so does Kay’s, _and_ she gets to keep her uncle who may or may not be in the process of becoming her second dad, Kay lucks out in this one.)

As for what Kay and Byrne do… you know all that crazy-awesome fighting and sneaking stuff Zuko does as the Blue Spirit? That. That’s what they do, Byrne is a scout and infiltration specialist, code name Yatagarasu of course, for the Earth Kingdom (and yes, haha, his name is ‘Byrne’ and he’s earth, he’s heard all the jokes, his grandma was Fire Nation before she met his Grandpa, okay, it’s a _traditional family name_ ). So basically this is the world where Kay gets to live the dream and be a ninja. The Ace Benders have a tiny, vaguely-trained ninja with them now who has inexplicably latched onto Miles, well this is going to be… fun…

anonymous asked: Any ideas about Calisto Yew in the Ace Avatar AU?

In both universes she’s a non-bender. In the Avatar-setting... pirate and smuggler, naturally enough, one who infiltrates both merchant and navy ships of all nationalities and relays information of their movements to her captain and the rest of their crew, and also sabotages them from the inside, to make them easier pickings. Byrne and Tyrell were both on an Earth Kingdom navy ship she did this with and, seeing Byrne’s scout and infiltration skills and Tyrell’s own illustrious military record, judged that they’d both be useful to her crew if they could be flipped, so they were taken prisoner when their ship was attacked, and taken back to their island to be used as workers/try to get them to join up in the meantime.

She very foolishly did not account for Byrne’s daughter joining on with a band of rag-tag misfits, accidentally storming the island, and getting her, her captain, their crew, and basically everyone problematic on the island arrested by the Fire Nation, because Gant’s not an idiot and realized that it was to his advantage to ‘help out their neighbour the Earth Kingdom’ like this (and potentially get some useful people feeling indebted to him, and also possibly have a few of the more useful pirates ‘escape’ to join his own organization. And Captain Lana has been behaving so much better since he got that pretty assistant for her, Shih-na’s such a lovely woman, so very helpful...

lees-got-writers-block asked: For the avatar au, I'd love to hear any of your headcanons on Kay, particularly regarding her interactions with the adults and the other kids!

I’m assuming we’re talking Avatar-setting, so here we go!

First off, once Kay joins the group, no one has personal space anymore, only space that Kay is not currently occupying, and, really, thinking she wouldn’t use you as a launch platform was just wishful thinking on your part. She gets along with Klavier like a house on fire, because she hasn’t fully mastered the ‘stealth’ portion of being a ninja just yet, but she makes up for it with ENTHUSIASM!!!

MIles is initially the only adult in the group she actually recognizes as having the authority of an adult (she doesn’t always _listen_ , of course, but she acknowledges it’s there), Larry and Phoenix are potential cohorts with no power over her. It takes awhile for her to gain enough respect for them to start viewing them as really worth listening to if they tell her she should or shouldn’t do something.

Ema’s still pretty stiff when Kay joins up, I think - even though she’s only eleven, we’re seeing her in a state similar to how she is in AA:AJ, just because she’s terrified for her sister and feels responsible for things outside her control, so she is 11/10 Stressed Out for a lot of this story. She finally starts relaxing again once Lana is saved, and winds up in a sort low-key frienemies situation with Kay, since they work for armies of different nations.

Apollo doesn’t like Kay much, but Kay likes Apollo a lot - he’s super fun and easy to tease! These two facts are related.

Maya she instantly recognizes as a Potential Partner In Crime, and once Franziska joins the group they form the unstoppable Team Teach Franziska How To Have Fun! Klavier is a probationary member of this group.

Kay thinks Trucy is adorable, and this is Very Good, because Trucy’s a two-year-old airbender, and Phoenix loves her and has no intentions of returning her to the air temple she came from afterwards, he’s going to hide her behind his back as say she was stolen by wild rabolopes when the time comes, but Trucy takes _so much energy_ to take care of, and sometimes he needs a break, and Kay can and will cheerfully keep up with her.

Nahyuta is a very dignified Master Airbender and will behave with the decorum his status requires. Kay is going to make him crack.

Kay is also waiting for her Uncle Badd to just ask her dad out already, sheesh, yeah, earth picks its moment, but _there have been a lot of moments he has not picked and he’s not getting any younger_ , Kay can tell, she can see his hair starting to turn grey. Once she’s rescued them from the pirates (with a tiny bit of help from the rest of the Ace Benders) she’s going to be very disappointed in him for not using the opportunity to make a move, because _you were captured by pirates together, how much more romantic can you get_!?

justanother--fan

EVEN IN THE DEPTHS OF NIGHT, WHEN NO OTHER BIRD DARES TO TAKE FLIGHT, ONE ALONE SOARS TO SHINE THE LIGHT OF RIGHTEOUSNESS ON THE WORLD’S BLIGHT!

Will Kay, Franziska and Klavier become the Yatagarasu?

greentrickster

Probably not - in the Avatar-setting ‘Yatagarasu’ is Byrne’s code name as a scout and inflitraitor, so it’s made up of just him. Kay would definitely like to inherit that name when she’s older, though!


	24. What about the Skye Sisters?

How about the Skye Sisters? Will the Ace Benders eescue them from Gant?

[justanother--fan](https://justanother--fan.tumblr.com/)

I’m gonna assume we’re talking Avatar-setting here, and go with that.

So, first thing’s first, that means, in this scenario, Lana is 25 and Ema is 11.

Lana is 25, and her boss is a man who is in the favour of the Fire Lord and his court, who achieved great honour and went from commoner to nobility with his heroics performed in the civil war that happened six years ago.

Lana is 25, and she just overheard the wrong meeting when she went to his home late one night to deliver some paperwork.

Lana is 25, and she’s just found out her boss is not the man she thought he was.

Lana is 25, and she loves her sister more than anything. More than life itself.

Lana is 25, and she knows a thing or two about strategy.

Lana is 25, and she has just forged her boss’s signature on three documents, and her sister is now officially banished from the Fire Nation on the grounds of treason.

Lana is 25, and she’s just put her sister on a boat with money and supplies and a scroll in her pack she’s supposed to deliver to Mia Fey and Diego Armando of the Foggy Swamp Tribe in the Earth Kingdom.

Lana is 25, and it’s only a few days after this that her actions are discovered.

Lana is 25, and she looks Gant in the eye and says, “If you let this stand, I will serve you in all ways, with all things.”

Lana is 25, and she is brilliant and successful and the rising star of Gant’s commanders.

Lana is 25, and she will throw away everything if it ensures her sister’s safety.

Ema is 11, and she’s just been sent on her first ever mission, one that requires the utmost secrecy, one that only she can accomplish.

Ema is 11, and she hugs her sister at the dock, unaware that she’s carrying the announcement and terms of her own banishment.

Ema is 11, and on her way to the only people in the world her sister trusts her with, though she doesn’t know it.

Ema is 11, and she arrives in the swamp only a few weeks before a disorganized group of travelers come careening through.

Ema is 11, and she has cried her tears and thought her thoughts and knows her sister better than anyone in the world.

Ema is 11, and she looks at this group and she sees luck and she sees intelligence and she sees skill.

Ema is 11, and she hands them all the remaining money she has and says, “You are going to help me save my sister.”

And they do.


	25. Avatar-setting Age Chart

Ace Avatar AU Avatar-setting age and bending chart for the Ace Benders:

 **20:** Phoenix (firebender), Miles (earthbender), Larry (???)

 **13:** Maya (spirit medium), Franziska (chi-blocker), Simon (waterbender)

 **11:** Ema (firebender)

 **10:** Klavier (firebender), Sebastian (non-bender studying bending anyway), Nahyuta (airbender)

 **9:** Apollo (airbender/avatar), Kay (non-bender/ninja-in-training)

 **2:** Trucy (baby airbender)

We’ve somehow ended up with a lot of firebenders, wasn’t my intention, but (shrugs). Also, as has been established, everyone’s _pretty_ sure Larry’s a bender, but no one knows what _kind_ , and that is the highest level of detail we ever get on his situation.


	26. A Humble Ice cream Salesman

Will Shelly de Killer become an antagonist, too? (Ace Avatar, as always and it's your inquisitive fan, yet again :> )

[justanother--fan](https://justanother--fan.tumblr.com/)

Frankly? It depends if anyone hires him or not - I agree with you, he’s more of an antagonist than a villain, the only personal stake he ever has in anything is whether he’s meeting his standard levels of quality and whether everyone’s upholding their end of the bargain. He’s still an extremely skilled assassin, and I’m going to put him down as a waterbender - in AA-setting he uses this when selling his ice cream, bending it into different shapes on the cone, and in the Avatar-setting he uses it to sell chilled drinks and fruit, since ice cream probably doesn’t exist there. He doesn’t use his bending for assassinations in either setting, because that’s an extra layer of cover story for him - people don’t expect benders to use non-bender fighting techniques. He’s probably proficient with multiple weapons and poisons in both settings.

Engarde doesn’t have a reason to get involved with the Ace Benders unless they happen to be nearby and get dragged into his mess when it happens, and he’s only about 16 there anyway (I’ve never mentioned outright, but in Avatar-setting everyone from AA is the same age they would have been in canon when Miles and Phoenix were twenty), so he’s unlikely to get involved, he’s a potential problem for the future. And, even if he wanted to, with the tech level at the time (the penultimate air avatar cycle before Aang) is probably such that Matt either doesn’t know about de Killer or just can’t get in contact with him.

Basically, if de Killer shows up in the Avatar-setting, it’ll be because Manfred, Kristoph, Gant, Redd White, or one of the other members of that little circle of evil hired him to get rid of the avatar’s traveling companions, and that would probably end… really badly for the Ace Benders, since they won’t have the loophole from canon to get out of this. So they probably wouldn’t bump into him as anything more than a chilled refreshment seller.

Of course, we _do_ have another potential assassin that would be a perfect opponent for them, intelligent, dangerous, unassuming, competent, good with knives and poisons…


	27. How do Phoenix and Miles meet?!

It's morning here and night over there, it's time for justanotherask !(yay?) How does Phoenix and Miles meet in the AU, when they are of different nationalities? Were there joint elemental schools?

[justanother--fan](https://justanother--fan.tumblr.com/)

In the Ace Avatar Avatar-setting, Miles and Phoenix actually still grew up together! They both come from a port town in the Earth Kingdom that’s located relatively close to the Fire Nation and so, since we’re in the penultimate air avatar cycle before Aang and the Fire Nation hasn’t attacked yet, this is a relatively heavy area of trade between the two. This means that there’s more than a few families living there who are either Fire Nation themselves or who have Fire Nation ancestors or relatives, and a decent number of Earth Kingdom residents who have ancestors or relatives who moved to the Fire Nation, because that’s just how port towns _work_. As you get farther inland for any country in this period, you’ll see fewer and fewer non-native people there - for many people in this AU, Phoenix will be the first member of the Fire Nation they’ve ever seen, and the same goes for Miles and the Earth Kingdom. The one exception to this are the airbenders, their nomadic lifestyle meaning that there’s always a 50/50 shot that a town has encountered one or more of them before.

Now, getting into specifics:

Miles’s ancestors are at least 90% from the are Earth Kingdom. While more recent generations of Miles’s branch have gone into government, legal, and military work, the Edgeworth family as a whole is known for the fine smiths it produces. It’s said that they’re so in tune with the metal they work that the iron actually seeps into them, and that’s why they often have grey hair. Gregory’s father moved to the port town, and Miles has more family further inland, though he’s never met them.

Phoenix is mostly Fire Nation, but his maternal grandfather is actually Water Tribe, which is where he gets his skin colour and blue right eye from. One of his absolute _favorite_ ways to describe this is “Yeah, I’ve got some water in my eye.” (he originally got the joke from Miles when they were kids, and he’s been making it ever since)

Larry’s dad is a sailor and is from a family of sailors, so Larry has no clue whatsoever what percentage of what country he is. When asked, he tends to just say “Very mixed” and leave it at that. He generally stayed with various families around town whenever his dad was away from port on a ship, and one day his father’s ship was lost at sea. He was staying with Phoenix’s family at the time, and they continued to foster him until he came of age.

Prior to Apollo showing up, none of them had ever been to a town or village other than their own.

Also, fun fact, Miles is probably the only one who has a family name in this setting other than Sebastian, because the Earth Kingdom seems to be the only group who uses such things in the show - Fire Nation and Water Tribe both seem to go with ‘son/daughter of this person and that person,’ and the Air Nomads seemed to identify by which temple they were from.


	28. Where's Athena?

where's athena in the ace avatar au?

Anonymous

I’m assuming you’re talking about the Avatar-setting here, so she’s living at the South Pole with her mom and her mom’s girlfriend, and will sadly not be going on adventures with the Ace Benders, because she’s only three. They already have two-year-old Trucy to worry about, and Athena has two moms to take care of her while Simon’s off having an adventure. Sorry Athena.

Aura and Simon’s parents were Water Tribe traders, and I think during this era the North and South Poles actually have their fingers on the pulse of trade routes indirectly, because while they don’t have a huge amount the rest of the world wants, metal ships haven’t been invented yet, and, since no one’s hunting them down, it’s widely acknowledged that the Water Tribe produces the best, most reliable sailors in the world, doubly so with their waterbenders. In this period there are very much some members of the Water Tribe who live their entire lives on the ocean and never set foot on land or solid ice. While skin and eye colour for these people has remained similar to that of other members of the Water Tribe, black hair is very common amongst them.

During one trip to the South Pole, when Simon was even younger than he is when he joins the Ace Benders, Aura met and became better acquainted with Metis, a skilled warrior and healer of her tribe (while the sexism shown in the show still exists, I’m going with that this is a slightly more liberal time for the Water Tribes and also a period coming off of a less peaceful time, so traditional roles within the Tribe aren’t as rigid and calcified as they are by the time Sokka and Katara are born. A long period of peace caused gender roles to become more distinct and rigid within both the Northern and Southern Tribes, and then a gridlock on these roles when the Fire Nation attacked and suddenly the growth of culture got cut off in favour of making sure we _have_ any culture _left_ at the end of all this. I’m going with the idea that the Southern Water Tribe has still traditionally been ‘more liberal’ than the Northern Water Tribe in that it allowed female waterbenders to learn to fight. While this original reasoning has been lost to time, the Northern Water Tribe thought this was wasteful, as women were ‘naturally superior’ healers, not to mention a pregnant healer could still perform to full ability at all stages of pregnancy, whereas sending a heavily pregnant warrior into battle was simply barbaric. Basically, sexism is still there, but it looks a bit different in this era and the hundred year war did exactly zero favours to any of the Water Tribe culturally speaking).

Anyway, Aura meets Metis, they grow to be good friends quite quickly, and Aura decides to stay when her ship leaves. Events transpire, Aura and Metis grow closer and eventually become romantically involved, Simon moves in with them when he’s nine because Metis is a widely-respected waterbending master in both fighting and healing and he wants to learn from her (no swords for either of them in this version of events, but boomerangs are a go). Metis also gets a donation from a healthy-looking fellow and eventually has Athena. Aura is technically the ‘man’ of the house (remember, sexism is a thing and it’s present, even if I would prefer it not to be), so she’s the hunter of the family. And since Gregory gets to live and Byrne Faraday gets to live, Metis gets to live as well, even if her death wouldn’t be for years in the future in this section of the AU, spoiler alert, we have a lot more living family members in this.

Anyway, they’re living together as a generally happy family, but then everything changed with the Ace Benders landed in a heap on their doorstep. After that Simon decided he couldn’t in good conscience let these people out on their own, Trucy’s even younger than Athena, they _need_ a healer with them. So his master-mom and sister agree to let him go, because there’s three adults in the group, and, hey, he’s technically a Water Tribe trader, gotta go where the waves take you.

Thus the group finally acquires another responsible member and Miles is very happy, and Simon is a responsible little cinnamon roll.


	29. And how should I begin?

what prompts the ace benders to leave the port town where they start, and where do they go next?

Anonymous

Miles and Phoenix leave their home after they meet Apollo and Trucy, determined to get them to another Air Temple to return them to their people and also warn them that, hey, someone might be attacking Air Temples? As they are leaving town, they run into Larry, then, very shortly after, the first of the mercenaries hired to capture Apollo for Team Evil. This results in them on a barge bound inland, and starts them on the road to Foggy Swamp where they will acquire a Maya and an Ema and also a mission to infiltrate the Fire Nation to save Lana.

…the saving Lana thing’s gonna take a bit of time, though, they’re totally gonna do it, just, um. Need to plan that out some first, Gant is Very Important and Powerful, and also we are Not That Organized. It’s something that would be completed in the final third of the story.


	30. How about a hug!

Will Raymond Shields play a part on the Ace Avatar AU? Is he with Gregory?

[justanother--fan](https://justanother--fan.tumblr.com/)

In the AA-setting he plays his usual role. In the Avatar-setting, he’s thirty, and he’s a non-bender and a non-fighter (I know, shocking!). I think now is the time to finally get serious about what Gregory does in this AU, so I’m going to say that he’s the chief justice in the port town the grown members of the Ace Benders come from, since we’re currently eight-hundred-years-bare-minimum-before-Aang, and I can’t remember the show having a very complicated court system, at least in the smaller towns.

Before Apollo showed up, Miles had been working with the local guard, to get some hands-on experience with what they do and how criminals are caught, and also with Ray. Ray is the AtLA version of a detective or investigator - he assists Gregory in finding out all the details of the crimes and does a lot of leg-work for him. This is the sort of job Gregory himself had before he became chief justice when he was thirty-seven and Miles was eleven. This is the sort of job Miles intends to take himself eventually. Gregory’s is a bigger and more important job than such roles usually are in towns of this size simply because it’s a port town and experiences more traffic as a result. Gregory has a couple other assistants besides Ray working for him. It’s open knowledge to everyone in town that, the next time one of these investigators retires, Miles will fill the empty slot. At the moment, he’s still in training.

Ray and Miles are decently close in this version of the AU, with Miles showing a sort of stiff or grumpy affection for Ray and Ray being a sort of goofball older friend/mentor to Miles. Miles first learned how to play Pai Sho from watching Ray and Gregory play each other, and favours the Panda Lily defense as his chief strategy at the moment, though he’s going to be learning about a very exciting new tile that’s coming into popular use while traveling with the Ace Benders - the White Lotus. Its exact role and rules surrounding it in the game aren’t quite solidified yet, but most people who encounter it and are very skilled agree that it definitely adds to the game and is sure to become a key tile, unlike the Gentle Hyacinth, which used to be a popular tile but has fallen out of favour in recent decades.


	31. Lotus buds

Will there be an Order of the White Lotus like secret (?) society in the AU? (Bonus points if the name is Order of the Phoenix, kidding 😂)

[justanother--fan](https://justanother--fan.tumblr.com/)

In the AA-setting, no, probably not, that’s just the AA world with bending added, so no Pai Sho, so no White Lotus.

The Avatar-setting is a different story entirely, however, as it’s set a bare minimum of eight centuries BA (Before Aang), making it a minimum of nine hundred years before Katara and Sokka find Aang (also Kyoshi apparently lived a super long time or something, so it could be even longer ago). The Order of the White Lotus doesn’t exist yet on account of the fact that the white lotus tile is actually quite a new addition to the game of Pai Sho at the moment. Indeed, Miles is going to encounter it for the first time while he’s traveling with the Ace Benders.

Since it’s a recent addition to the game, the strategies and rules surrounding the white lotus tile are still quite new and in their formation stages, but already showing signs of being a _really_ interesting addition to the game. Having been taught to play by his father and Ray, Miles is a natural Pai Sho enthusiast (he tends to favour the Panda Lily defense), and he’s fascinated by the new options the new tile presents. He goes out of his way to obtain several copies of the white lotus after that, two so that he can give them to his father and Ray when they get home, and one so that he can use it in other games of Pai Sho he might play on the road, or at least help it spread a bit, because it’s a good addition to the game.

Well, ‘a bit’ is the initial plan, at least. He does acquire it quite early in the journey, after all, if rather deep in the Earth Kingdom. The actual thing that happens is that he ends up getting dragged all over the world with the rest of the Ace Benders, plays Pai Sho with people from all over the place, and takes the strategies he learns from them with him when he goes, leaving behind the strategies he’s brought with him and pebbles bent into white lotus tiles so they’ll have a template to make proper ones from.

And, in this manner, the white lotus tile becomes inadvertently but deeply connected with the concept of inter-nation interaction and also the Avatar, so when a small group of Pai Sho masters from various countries eventually decide to start a club dedicated to international harmony, playing Pai Sho with each other, and helping the avatar if need be, naturally there is only one tile that they could possibly name themselves after. And thus the Order of the White Lotus is born and Miles also gets very, _very_ good at making stone white lotus tiles (he’s okay with it, though, because it’s something that’s great for showing off his fine bending control).


	32. It's a Misty-ry

justanother--fan asked: Is Morgan Fey one of the villains that the Ace Benders have to stop?

greentrickster answered:

I’d say yes! Maybe not one of the original members of Team Evil, since she’s in the Foggy Swamp with the rest of the Feys (and also Diego), which is decently deep into the Earth Kingdom, she encounters them after the Ace Benders have passed through, finds out a little more than they intended, and, instead of blowing their cover or doing something ‘silly’, she announces that she wants in. And proves she has the intelligence and know-how to be a valuable ally. For her part, Morgan’s still upset that Misty became the new clan head instead of her, and that, after Misty’s ‘accident,’ Mia stepped up as her mother’s successor, in spite of being quite young at the time and newly-returned from her spirit journeying (during which time she acquired a Diego and a long-distance Lana).

Morgan wants power. And if she can’t have it in the way she was ‘supposed’ to, then she’s more than willing to find alternative solutions to the universe’s oversight.

Thanks for the ask!

[ ](https://justanother--fan.tumblr.com/post/624038913038811136) [ justanother--fan ](https://justanother--fan.tumblr.com/post/624038913038811136)

Misty’s ‘accident,’ ? By chance, does this include a certain Dahlia and her poison darts?

[ ](https://greentrickster.tumblr.com/post/624039770588397568) [ greentrickster ](https://greentrickster.tumblr.com/post/624039770588397568)

(puts hands to cheeks and gasps in shock) Of course not! Bodies are just so… _vulnerable_ when their spirit is communing with the spirit world, you know? And Misty, spirits rest her, but she was never quite as… _thorough_ as she should have been, about making sure she was somewhere safe before making contact, especially if she thought the need to commune was urgent. The swamp is a dangerous place, full of mysteries both mundane and not so. But her bloody robe was found not far from a crocogater hole.

Well.

Pieces of it were, at least.

They never found her body.

She could have been killed by anything. _  
_

_Anything_.

Her death is a tragedy, and Morgan and her daughters are in _mourning_ for her sister/their aunt’s death!

~~She could still be alive.~~

~~The girl was over-confident and sloppy.~~

~~She learned to do better next time.~~


	33. Enter Lamiago!

Hey, I wanted to ask, what's Godot's role in your Avatar AU's?

Anonymous

Originally, in the first post that started this whole ball rolling, I had him down as a firebender, but now that the AU’s developed more I’m going to change him to a waterbender - it feels more appropriate (and also we have a LOT of firebenders).

In the AA-setting, things happen as they do in canon, with the added fact that he was a decent enough bender before his coma, but the poison interfered with his ability to bend along with all the other things it messed up in his body. By the time he enters the scene he’s gotten to the point where he can stir his coffee without touching it, but even that’s an effort and it hurts that it's an effort. (One of the ways he used to lightly flirt with Mia is stir her coffee for her in mid-air.)

In the Avatar-setting he’s a member of the Northern Water Tribe who initially works as a sailor on one of their trading vessels. He meets Mia when he’s nineteen and she’s sixteen and traveling for her spirit journey and just. Wow. He’s met Fire Nation girls kinda like her before, but never anyone from the Water Tribe, and he didn’t know there even _were_ any waterbender tribes in the Earth Kingdom-?! (Other than their spirit journeys, the swampbenders tend to keep to themselves) He’s just- he needs to get to know this girl, he _needs_ to, or he knows he’ll regret it forever.

So he suggests that Mia sign on with the ship he’s serving on for a bit, since the point of her spirit journey is to see the world a bit and, hey, we’re going to the Fire Nation next, wanna see the Fire Nation?

Mia would very much like to see the Fire Nation.

On the trip over, Mia and Diego get to know each other better and absolutely start changing each others’ world views some, Diego rethinking some of the Northern opinions and stereotypes about women (since the Foggy Swamp Tribe is a matriarchy), and Mia learning a lot about the world that she just didn’t know because her tribe is pretty isolationist for the most part. He shows her ice for the first time ever with his bending, and, holy wow, that is _not_ something they do with bending in her tribe-?! Meanwhile Diego’s having his own mind blown a bit in regards to bending because you can bend the water?! In plants?!? HOW?!?!?

By the time they get to the Fire Nation they’re both flirting with each other a bit, and Diego is calling Mia Kittenpup (kittenpups grow into tigerseals). Once they get there, Mia leaves the ship and Diego goes with her, offering to act as a bit of a guide since he knows more about the Fire Nation than she does (this was originally going to be a temporary leave of absence from his ship). There, they meet a seventeen-year-old Lana, who’s just signed on as a cadet in the Fire Nation army. Things are kind of unstable in the Fire Nation at the moment, there’s a civil war going on - not a large one, but wars of any size are Not Good.

They still manage to get to know Lana pretty well in spite of that, and Mia starts feeling a little conflicted, because she _really likes_ Lana, but it’s in the same way that she _really likes_ Diego, and. Um. What to do?

Sit down and talk it out with both of ‘em, that’s what to do, she is the future leader of her tribe, she does not run from problems, she SOLVES THEM.

Lana is flattered and also interested, but unfortunately also unsure what to do. Diego fails to see the problem, she’s going to be the chief of her tribe, two spouses shouldn’t be a problem for her.

“EXCUSE ME?!?”

A very confused Diego explains that, in the Northern Tribe (in this period, at least), having more than one wife isn’t unheard of, and it’s something of a status symbol, because it means you’re competent enough to provide for both women and any children they might have. And if Lana’s going to be chief, taking care of two spouses shouldn’t be a problem for her-?

And Mia goes, “Well I do have two hands if you’re both cool with it” and calmly yoinks this idea when they both are. Though Lana’s a little nervous about it, because she’s just joined the army, so she can’t leave with them until she’s served for her enlistment period, which is ten years. And she’s not trying to be insecure or anything, but, like. Ten _years_.

“Who wants to learn about another Northern Tribe tradition called ‘engagement pendants?” goes Diego.

“Double yoink.” goes Mia.

Everyone Learns How To Carve Engagement Pendants. Lana and Diego each get one from Mia, and she gets one from each of them. At first Diego’s a bit uncomfortable even though he likes it “I’m a guy, guys don’t usually get these, can I wear mine on my wrist-?” “You will wear my beautiful engagement gift on your neck for all the world to see or we are not engaged.” “Yes, Mia.” (he gets used to it)

They all hang out together a bit more, test this polyamory idea a bit to see if it works, so far so good, we’re all enjoying this. When Mia eventually admits that she should be getting home, they take a homing hawk with them so they’ll be able to send messages back and forth with Lana.

After that, Mia and Diego go back to Foggy Swamp and basically get on with their lives. Mia continues her training as a medium and the next leader of her tribe, Diego has a blast trading techniques with the tribe’s waterbenders, because Northern waterbending and swampbending are wildly different and this is really interesting. Communication is kept up with Lana, they maybe see her a time or two again before the Ace Benders show up, not as often as they’d like, but they make it work. It gets harder when Misty Fey dies in a ‘tragic accident,’ but, again, they make it work, Diego pulls a little extra weight for awhile during Mia’s mourning and adjustment periods, but they come through and are looking forward to the day that Lana can join them.

Then, two years before Lana’s enlistment period ends, her younger sister Ema shows up at Foggy Swamp unwittingly carrying news of her own banishment, and a few weeks later the Ace Benders Starter Pack shows up, and things get complicated.


	34. Plans and disasters

How do the Ace Benders come up with plans? Who is their plan guy/leader?

[justanother--fan](https://justanother--fan.tumblr.com/)

Phoenix and Miles tend to be the co-leaders of the team, switching back and forth depending on which of them is better equipped to handle the situation. They’ve known each other their whole lives and been dating for three, they’re pretty dang good at working with each other at this point. This said, there are the occasional times of tension and contention between the two of them, just because this is a wildly different situation than anything they’ve ever been in before, and also has much higher stakes.

And this is actually when Larry steps up, because Larry has also been there for their whole lives and, while he knows they _can_ sort things out on their own, he’s also a surprisingly good judge at when it would be best for good ol’ Larry to step in and smooth things along. Nine times out of ten he succeeds, too, he’s _really_ good at figuring out what the core point of the conflict is and addressing it. Larry’s also the best one with the kids initially, he did a lot of odd jobs around town while growing up, to help pay his way, and babysitting and pet care turned out to be things he’s surprisingly good with. He’s a goof, and he’s not allowed to carry the money, but Phoenix and Miles both feel absolutely secure leaving the kids in Larry’s care because he’ll accidentally cause an international incident before he lets anything bad happen to them (and yes, he has done this before, and no, do not ask, it happened when they were all young teens and Miles and Phoenix are STILL trying to repress it).

In regards to Phoenix and Miles again, if a plan calls for strategy, better to ask Miles, if we need a plan in the next three minutes or that’s completely unexpected, ask Phoenix.

nope, I am gonna ask, how did Larry cause an international incident as a young teen?!??

Anonymous

Did you know that three of the things that vary the most between one country and another, even in our world, are slang, rude hand gestures, and sense of humour? What is a simple, appropriate joke in one culture can be nonsensical, or even hideously offensive in another - it’s one of the interesting things about humanity.

Anyway, Larry admitted later he should have kept a slightly better eye on little Mita, but, in his defense, he hadn’t known there would be two sets of important diplomatic envoys in port that day, or that they would have such differing opinions on the joke he tried to use to defuse the situation, or that the envoys were on their way to negotiate with each other, or that one set laughing at something so offensive would be seen as horribly rude and repulsive to the other set, and really just don’t let a kid half-way raised by sailors near the important people, okay, the head of town had a lot more grey in his hair after that incident than he started with.


	35. Team Evil

justanother--fan asked:Do you think that Gregory and Manfred will still be enemies/rivals in the AU?

greentrickster answered:

I’m assuming you mean the Ace Avatar AU in the Avatar-setting. And to answer your question, probably not. While the port town Gregory lives and works in is fairly prosperous, it’s not particularly large, and you know Manfred - he likes his power and he likes his prestige. Even if he had started out there, he would have left quite young. In the Avatar-setting he’s a wealthy property owner and politician, probably from the Earth Kingdom, with his fingers in enough pies that he has to travel to the Fire Nation from time to time, enough to fall in to diabolical scheming with Blaise, Gant, and the rest of them.

…I don’t actually have a lot structured out for Team Evil in this setting, I’m not very good with villains and evil plots. >_>U

But still, thanks for the ask!

[ ](https://justanother--fan.tumblr.com/post/624220343859544064) [ justanother--fan ](https://justanother--fan.tumblr.com/post/624220343859544064)

Hmm. Is it just me, or the members of Team Evil seems to be from all the four nations (Gant and Debeste -fire, Morgan-water, Manfred-earth I’m not really sure about Redd White, though.) What if with the help of a brainwashed young Avatar, Team Evil overthrows their respective kingdoms and rules the world? Thoughts?

[ ](https://greentrickster.tumblr.com/post/624221669155848192) [ greentrickster ](https://greentrickster.tumblr.com/post/624221669155848192)

Sounds legit! Plan World Domination by Team Evil is go!


	36. Disguises

justanother--fan asked: (Ace Avatar AU, as always) Apollo is an Air Nomad, right? Does he shave his head too?

greentrickster answered:

Yes he is, he’s an airbender in the AA-setting, and in the Avatar-setting he’s a nine-year-old air nomad with a baby sky bison that can hold him and Trucy and that’s it, he doesn’t even have a glider yet, let alone his arrows, he is li’l bab airbender, and Trucy, at two, is even _more_ li’l bab airbender (please take a moment to truly understand the nightmare that is a two-year-old that can sneeze and go hurtling into the sky as a result).

He gets the Miles and Phoenix to help him keep shaving his head at first, but as the hunt goes on and Team Evil starts to get the word out ‘be on the lookout for this group,’ they sit Apollo down and explain that they need him to wear different clothes and let his hair grow for a bit so that he stands out less. It’s not forever, only for now, they’ll help him shave again the _instant_ it’s safe enough, swear to Agni, Oma, and Shu!

“…doesn’t Master Miles’s hair stand out, too?”

“You know, he has a point, Edgey.”

And that’s how Apollo ends up with hair and Miles ends up getting his own hair dyed black. Turns out Miles is more upset over this change than Apollo long-term, because, “Hey, we’re a mixed group, so choose any kind of clothing colour you like” and Apollo is instantly “BRIGHT RED!!!” and very excited about it. Meanwhile Miles needs Phoenix to fuss over him a bit and assure him he doesn’t look weird. Because Apollo is a flexible little airbender and Miles is twenty and still self-conscious at times about his looks compared to his gorgeous, flamboyant fire-performer boyfriend. (Miles and Phoenix are both convinced that their boyfriend is the handsome one in the relationship, Larry thinks it’s the cutest, silliest thing he’s ever seen.)

Thanks for the ask!

[ ](https://justanother--fan.tumblr.com/post/624396307714473984) [ justanother--fan ](https://justanother--fan.tumblr.com/post/624396307714473984)

Wait… Doesn’t the flamboyant fire-performer boyfriend’s hairspikes stand out as well?

[ ](https://greentrickster.tumblr.com/post/624397739312201728) [ greentrickster ](https://greentrickster.tumblr.com/post/624397739312201728)

The flamboyant fire-performer’s hair spikes are present, but not as distinctive as they are in the AA-setting - his hair’s naturally fluffy and spiky, and he doesn’t use gels on it (or anything else that could make it more flammable), so it spikes out at the back and fluffs and spikes up on the top a bit, too (I reblogged a piece of art awhile back that looks how I think Phoenix’s hair appears when it’s not gelled - you can find if under the aa saturation tag on my blog or the tag phoenix hair, because it’s pretty much exactly what I’m thinking of).

Anyway, the main point is, Phoenix’s hair is kinda distinctive, but not nearly as much as it is in AA canon - the things he has to worry about more is that his eyes are dichromatic (one blue, one brown), and those jagged brows of his. The eyebrows he can hide with a bit of make-up or soot. The eyes? Not so much, and those are a _highly_ distinguishing feature.


	37. Love and poison

justanother--fan asked: Any ideas about Larry's romantic... escapades? (Ace Avatar AU)

greentrickster answered:

For the Avatar-setting… he tries, believe me, he tries, because there are all these beautiful women they keep running into, women who are obviously his destined soulmates, except they’re kinda on the run, so he has to keep leaving them behind for their own safety, it’s tragic, he feels so terrible about it (Phoenix and Miles are watching in morbid fascination as they get the first-hand experience of watching Larry experience full-on heartbreak after every single village and caravan and ship they come in contact with that has a female member he finds attractive, it’s baffling and horrifying but you just can’t look away…)

On the plus side, this is the universe where Larry finally gets lucky in love when they _finally_ get another adult traveling companion - or, at least, another person in their early twenties. And yeah, she seemed a bit more curious about Nick at first, but it didn’t take her long to come to her senses and realize that Larry was the only man for her, it almost certainly would have happened even if Nick _wasn’t_ already basically married to Edgey, they’re _soulmates_ , Larry just knows it! And she’s so sweet and kind and brave, agreeing to travel with them like this, even though she’d never left her hometown before and doesn’t know how to fight, and _wowee_ is she a looker, he’s never seen anyone with naturally red hair before…

Thanks for the ask! :3

[ ](https://justanother--fan.tumblr.com/post/624489635398205440) [ justanother--fan ](https://justanother--fan.tumblr.com/post/624489635398205440)

“…he’s never seen anyone with naturally red hair before…” Oh no. Is she who I think she is? A certain knives/darts yielding lady in her twenties?

[ ](https://greentrickster.tumblr.com/post/624490030653702144) [ greentrickster ](https://greentrickster.tumblr.com/post/624490030653702144)

She is _very_ fond of pink, if that’s what you’re asking, and she’s almost certainly a twin… 83

(And I _definitely_ hadn’t thought of this until you sent me the ask, part of why asks are so much fun, they spark new ideas!)

[ ](https://justanother--fan.tumblr.com/post/624490503742816256) [ justanother--fan ](https://justanother--fan.tumblr.com/post/624490503742816256)

Why did she join the Ace Benders, is it to help save her Red twin? Hmm… Is their team Avatar still called the Ace Benders when not all of them are at this point (._.)?

[ ](https://greentrickster.tumblr.com/post/624491057484300288) [ greentrickster ](https://greentrickster.tumblr.com/post/624491057484300288)

You mean Iris? Iris is safe in Foggy Swamp, with her foster mom Beh-kin-ee. The Ace Benders never even met her when they were there, and they don’t encounter Dahlia until after Morgan joins Team Evil and offers to deploy her useful daughter (Pearl is also three at the moment, she hasn’t revealed herself to be more useful than Dahlia yet by being a prodigy of a medium) to help deal with the… problems and also get Apollo used to a ‘friendly face’ who’s going to ‘rescue him’ after the rest of the party ‘dies in a raid’ (or whatever Dahlia manages to come up with).

And… hmm. I think they’d probably stick with ‘Ace Benders’ just on the grounds as it’s more the name they use when hiring themselves out to do odd jobs. And since Miles, Phoenix, and Larry (resident ??? bender) are the ones earning the money, the name still applies.

[ ](https://isdisorigionalenoughforyou.tumblr.com/post/624507012424908800) [ isdisorigionalenoughforyou ](https://isdisorigionalenoughforyou.tumblr.com/post/624507012424908800)

what do the kids think of dahlia?? because on one hand, some of them have trust issues and some are very perceptive, but… some are very trusting and/or probably are used to toxic behavior?

(im just imagining apollo and trucy death-glaring this pretty, very totally harmless and wonderful sweet lady constantly…)

[ ](https://greentrickster.tumblr.com/post/624508227458088960) [ greentrickster ](https://greentrickster.tumblr.com/post/624508227458088960)

A key thing to remember is that, in this branch of the AU, all of these kids are just that - kids - and they don’t necessarily have the same backstories as they do in canon. Apollo and Trucy (who is two) were raised by Air Nomads, in a very peaceful, loving environment. With their tell-spotting abilities, they probably know that Dahlia makes them uncomfortable, but, with their age, don’t know why. And they trust Miles, Phoenix, and Larry (to keep them safe, at least), so maybe things are just different outside the monastery…?

Ema is more likely to be a suspicious bean - the events that led her to Foggy Swamp’ll do that to a person. Ema’s honestly a little suspicious of everyone at the moment. Maya thinks she looks weirdly familiar, but doesn’t remember ever seeing anyone with that hair colour and didn’t know Iris that well, so she decides to be extra nice to balance out Ema.

Klavier and Kay are tiny, trusting beings of love, sunshine, and, in Kay’s case, espionage. They think Dahlia’s lovely, and Dahlia’s been with the group a bit longer than them, so she must be fine…? But suspicions begin to grow after awhile.

Sebastian is just… he’s so confused. Everything he thought he knew was a lie. He just wants to cuddle with Master Edgeworth and learn firebending stances from Master Phoenix, okay? He likes Master Edgeworth best. Kay and Klavier are also pretty cool.

Franziska is a creature of zero subtlety and 100% blows Dahlia’s cover as soon as she figures her out, because it is foolish to think that she, Dahlia, is going to take out these foolish fools when obviously it is Franziska’s destiny to do so. (This probably leads to hijinks involving a temporary Fran-and-Ace-Benders team-up of Them vs The Wrath of Dahlia, then eventually a more permanent forcible adopting to Fran’s supposed dismay)

Simon gets to deal with the fall-out when they all finally arrive at the South Pole to pick up a waterbending representative for Apollo, who we recently learned is the Avatar, ha ha ha, why is this our life? Simon wins them over with the power of his utter cinnamon-roll-ness and also by being the only other person who can convince Miles to take a rest when he needs one.

It’s months before Larry looks twice at a woman again. Before he can properly think about doing more than look without remembering what his actions last time he fell for a girl nearly caused. Larry’s a guy who already doesn’t trust himself very far, and he lost a huge chunk of his self-trust to Dahlia’s lies and manipulation. He gets very, very protective of the kids and his friends after Dahlia’s true colours are revealed, and he’s probably going to have a long, _long_ talk with Metis when they get to the South Pole. He doesn’t even care that Dahlia was going to hurt him, and though he wouldn’t be cool with it his friends can defend themselves, but the kids…? He can never forgive her for trying to hurt the kids, and Miles and Phoenix are afraid he might never forgive himself for almost letting it happen. They were hoping that he’d grow up a bit more eventually, but not for something like this to happen, never something like this.


	38. DGS and Spirits

Hi! I really love your Avatar AU, and it reminds me a lot of one guy's TF2/Avatar AU! And in this one he had even put in... Past avatars. So... Does the DGS crew constitutes a past Avatar team? (The avatar being... Idk... Naruhoudou or Iris?)

[lyxine](https://lyxine.tumblr.com/)

Thank-you! <3 The DGS team certainly exists in the Avatar-setting of this AU as well as the AA setting, absolutely! In the Avatar-setting they’re probably still the ancestors of the people they’re related to in canon, and, fun as it would be to have had them all be connected to that generation’s avatar (and tempting as it is to make said avatar Iris), they probably had their own non-avatar-related adventures, just because the lower levels of communication and travel between nations in this era would make such things less feasible.

That said, if you wanted to do an Avatar-AA AU featuring them more prominently, absolutely go ahead, they’re a great group and I bet they would be really fun in this setting, I’m all for seeing these wonderful, crazy people let loose in the Avatar world!

(a late following to the integration of DGS ask) Would that generation have the fire Avatar or an another element's avatar? And would this era be more "wild" with Spirits or creatures roaming around? Or energy benders?

[lyxine](https://lyxine.tumblr.com/)

Fortunately, from my perspective, I got them at the same time, so it all works out! The previous avatar would have had to be fire, since Apollo is an airbender, and we’d be about a hundred years in the past, so yeah, unknown fire avatar for the DGS group.

As for the spirits and such… hm, I don’t know. I don’t follow the lore Korra introduced for the Spirit World and avatar cycle (I’ve seen some people do super cool things with it, but not my cup of tea, I’m afraid), so while I can see the spirit and human worlds being potentially closer in this era, it would look different in this world than it was shown in Korra. A solid no to the energy benders, that ability’s a little too OP to be running around loose, so while it might exist, it’s been forgotten at this point in time, at least in my version of events. Again, if you want to do your own Avatar-AA AU and change all this around, absolutely feel free, this is just how I’m doing it in this one. :)


	39. Clay in the sky

Do you have headcanons about Apollo's baby sky bison, especially the bison's name?

[justanother--fan](https://justanother--fan.tumblr.com/)

They are ver smol at the moment, li’l bab, can carry Apollo and Trucy, and that’s it, that’s their weight limit. They are also, naturally, ver cute. Miles is smitten. _Smitten_. Makes sure they’re properly groomed, nice healthy feet, barely any idea what he’s doing because he’s never cared for one before and only seen a full-grown one once or twice when Air Nomads came through port or passed over the town, but he’s DOING HIS BEST (Apollo very much approves of all this, he loves his bison and so should everyone else).

As for names… the bison is either a girl bison named Mikeko, and is the replacement for the cat Apollo has in canon, or else - and, hear me out on this one - …it’s a boy named Clay, and I’m breaking my own rule a bit and having Clay Terran be a non-bender in the AA-setting and a straight-up sky bison in the Avatar-setting who is still Apollo’s best friend. Thoughts and opinions, everyone?

[justanother--fan ](https://justanother--fan.tumblr.com/post/624579496067121152)

If Clay is still a li'l bab sky bison with a weight limit of 2 people, how do the Ace Benders travel and evade evil?

[ ](https://greentrickster.tumblr.com/post/624580500016824320) [ greentrickster ](https://greentrickster.tumblr.com/post/624580500016824320)

By barge, caravan, ship, by foot (sometimes very quickly), occasionally by mount, and often by hiding in and under the bushes. They do technically have a master earthbender with them, after all (even if he won’t admit he’s a master until he gets formally named one), and none of Team Evil think to look underground at first. Miles in no way has Toph’s tremor-sense, but if he meditates and focuses on his connection with the earth for a bit, he’s pretty good at finding caves and underground passages and such, or making hiding places for them himself if need be. This is a Miles who never learned to fear earthquakes or closed-in spaces, after all, and this gives him definite advantages at times.

But yeah, lots of using Clay to carry Trucy and extra supplies while everyone else walks. Every day is leg day when you’re running for your life! 8D

Fortunately for the Ace Benders, Team Evil is equally hampered in this instance by being 1000 years before Sozin’s attack and Aang’s birth, so no war balloons, no fast-moving tanks, no steam ships, no particularly advanced technology. The Ace Benders aren’t moving as fast as the Gaang, but Team Evil doesn’t have nearly as many advantages as Ozai and Azula or even Zuko did, and they have the added disadvantage that they don’t want word of their plans getting back to the world leaders they’re trying to overthrow.

Meaning that there’s going to be more than a few people in power starting to worry that they’ve done something to anger the gods and spirits as reports of the the chaos that is the Ace Benders start to come in from more and more places. Are- are they terrorists? Revolutionaries? What is even they’re problem, we’re experiencing a pretty sweet period of peace and prosperity?

Meanwhile Phoenix, Miles, and Larry are all going, “Oh gods, we just wanna keep the baby airbenders safe and get them home, oh gods, we’re parents, oh gods, we’re parents _again_ , oh gods, how do we have _this many children already_ -?!??”

Thank you for reminding me of both Aang's reaction to losing Appa and Apollo's reaction to losing Clay, you monster

[onceuponymous](https://onceuponymous.tumblr.com/)

  


…I didn’t think of that, I was honestly just thinking of how much fun Clay would have being a sky bison and how he and Apollo would get to travel the world together like that and be BFFs, IF CLAY ENDS UP AS AVATAR APOLLO’S ANIMAL COMPANION THIS WILL 100% BE A NO SKY-BISON WERE HARMED AT ANY POINT IN THIS STORY AU, ESPECIALLY NOT THE ADORABLE BABY ONES!!!

"Are you the airbenders everyone is looking for?" / "NOPE!" / "But you have a sky bison" / "Nooooo, this is an EARTH bison, totally different" / "What's his name?" / "Clay Terran" / "An earth bison named Dirt Dirt. Yeah, that checks out"

[onceuponymous](https://onceuponymous.tumblr.com/)

“Are you saying you have to be an airbender to have a sky bison? They are Magnificent, Free, and Majestic Creatures, meant to roam where they will and bond with who they choose, traversing air and earth in a path than spans and connects our world, a metaphor for the boundless spirit that lives within and connects us all, as dust may travel on the breeze-” (This is a point where Phoenix and Larry get hands over Miles’s mouth and restrain him, cutting off his impassioned speech)

Apollo, in bright red, practicing a firebending form: “I just think he’s neat. And also a good boy, who’s a good boy, who’s a good boy-?”

Miles, muffled from the efforts of Larry and Phoenix: “EXCUSE YOU, HE IS THE BEST BOY-!!!”

Overly curious person, watching Miles do his best to earthbend Larry and Phoenix into the ground while restrained: “Yeah, never mind. [insert comment about how an airbender would never name their sky bison ‘clay’ anyway.]”

Later

Apollo, obviously Concerned and Upset: “Is- is Clay not a good name for a sky bison?”

Miles: (explains in thorough detail why Clay is a mighty and noble name that is perfectly befitting a sky bison, squashing all of Apollo’s fears on this topic beyond any chance of revival)


	40. (fill in the blank)

Is Miles' mother alive in this Everybody-Lives-Ace-Avatar-AU?

[justanother--fan](https://justanother--fan.tumblr.com/)

Sure, if you want! I don’t really have strong feelings about her one way or the other - no dislike, but no real interest either, which is why I don’t really do anything with her. Ace Attorney is one of those (sadly) rare instances where I’m spoiled for choice with fabulous female characters of all sorts, so I don’t feel a lot of need to explore the ones that are never even touched on. The Ace Benders’ final core team consists of seven boys and five girls, and I wasn’t even trying to get a good balance or anything, and the only reason it didn’t end up seven and seven is that Athena, Pearl, and Trucy are all 2/3 years old and I couldn’t find a reasonable excuse (and am also not cruel enough) to send three kids that small on the run, especially when Athena has the option to just chill with her mom and her mom’s girlfriend at the South Pole and Morgan can decide to leave Pearl in the care of relatives while she ~~plots to help take over the world~~ goes on a spiritual pilgrimage (because guess who just realized they could have a Pearl Raised By Lamiago?). So… yeah. I don’t really think about her much.

Thanks for the ask, sorry my answer was basically a verbal shrug, but, hey, more room for other people to have ideas in!

Thoughts on Simon Keyes in the Ace Avatar AU? Idk how much Deep Lore Backstory stuff carries over but I love the idea of an unassuming circus man with a bunch of exotic ATLA-verse creatures (Moni the flying lemur? lol idk) trying to use the avatar for some galaxy-brained revenge schemes. Perhaps with a blind air-nomad-turned-assassin dad?

Anonymous

To be honest, it could go many ways in the Avatar-setting. Keyes could end up in a circus of death, or a regular circus, or even just living with his father - the exact events surrounding his life are so specific to being in a world like ours that it would take some delicate work to perfectly mimic them, though a similar but avatar-appropriate equivalent could take place. I wouldn’t likely have him show up in the main AU even if he did become a villain again in this setting, he’d be someone Apollo and the Ace Benders confronted when Apollo is older and stronger.

Unfortunately, Keyes just isn’t one of those villains that catches my interest or that I have any desire to really expand on or explore, so this is likely the only time I’ll address him in this AU. Plus side, as with all characters and details I don’t cover, however, is that that means you’re completely free to choose whatever ending or situation that you want for him in this universe!

What is the Southern Watertribe like in the Ace Avatar AU? Will it be like the ATLA, with the igloos or will it look like the North Pole? Also haven't watched TLOK so I really am clueless >//

[justanother--fan](https://justanother--fan.tumblr.com/)

I’m not entirely sure - I watched the first three seasons of Korra back in 2016, but it just wasn’t my thing, so I stopped, and I don’t remember much of how they depicted it; nor have I read the comics.

For the sake of diversity, I would say that they still use igloos and have a more nomadic lifestyle than the Northern Tribe, moving with the seasons and the animals, so they don’t do particularly fancy structures to live in, more practical and functional. Instead, I’d say their waterbenders were really good at doing stuff to make traveling easier and safer, and maybe they had more impressive sleds or something? I mean, imagine using waterbending to propel yourself over snow and ice on a sled like you would with a boat in the water! And they’d have more elaborate, decorated sleds or sleighs or whatever they used for transport, because of travel being such an important part of their culture!

Oh! And, fun fact, the arctic areas of our world are some of the best places to find meteors, if I’m remembering correctly, so meteoric metal is more common up there! I bet that would have been a part of their culture, and also something valuable they used for trade with other nations, since we learned in AtLA that it’s canonically rare and valuable!

Beyond that, I’m not entirely sure. The Northern and Southern Tribes are both obviously based on arctic cultures, of which my own personal knowledge isn’t very broad - if anyone has more knowledge in this area and wants to contribute, I’d love to hear your ideas!

If I remember correctly, in the Gaang's time, only Toph had a last name. How about in the Ace Avatar Universe, will there be fewer people with that since it was set a century earlier?

[justanother--fan](https://justanother--fan.tumblr.com/)

In the show, yes, only Toph had a last name. I think they maybe did something so that other characters had something like that too maybe post show, but I have only watched the show, and some of the choices they made with post-show content annoy me, so the show’s what I’m going with.

What I’m going with is, family names/last names/surnames are an Earth Kingdom thing, and even then they’re not universal. Miles has his canonical last name, Sebastian could use his mother’s last name if he wanted to since she was Earth Kingdom in this, but they’re the only ones in the Ace Benders with a last name. Franziska could have one, but I’m a little up in the air about whether she does or not, more because I don’t have a strong opinion one way or the other on this.

Also, this is actually set a millennium before the Gaang’s time - a century is 100 years, a millennium is 1000, and we’re about a thousand years in the past, because we’re two full avatar cycles before Aang was born and some avatars apparently lived quite a long time, and then Aang was in an iceberg for a hundred years on top of that.


	41. Miles can't art

Do Miles still cry when attempting to fold paper cranes? (Ace Avatar)

[justanother--fan](https://justanother--fan.tumblr.com/)

Bold of you to assume that he’s ever had the opportunity to try - we’re a thousand years before Aang was born, 1,100 before AtLA is set, paper is _expensive_ , even just for using it to write stuff on, let alone use for arts and crafts. If Miles is lucky he knows how to read, maybe write his name and some simple phrases, that’s it! And he would still be considered pretty educated for that. Larry probably knows any shorthand or code symbols that sailors have, and as for Phoenix… who knows, he might have learned to read next to Miles, he might be illiterate in this setting, could go either way.

However, Miles _is_ still high-key terrible at making stuff with his hands, he’s just not very good with them when it comes to arts and such. Let him use his bending, and he can make you a perfect pai sho set out of stone, with the tile patterns indented neatly into them (and, believe me, he gets a _lot_ of practice doing this while they’re on the run). Take away his bending, however… and yes, he absolutely used to cry about not being able to make things like Larry and Phoenix could when they were all children. And while he won’t _automatically_ cry if he tries and fails to make something now that he’s a grown man of twenty, he’ll _immediately_ start getting embarrassed and a bit teary if anyone teases or calls him on it, and then Phoenix will give them the stink eye.


	42. The one where sexism gets vaguely mentioned

Does Gregory approve of his son's flamboyant fire-performer boyfriend?

[justanother--fan](https://justanother--fan.tumblr.com/)

Yup! Phoenix is a good man, Gregory watched him grow up with his son and realized that any grandkids he’s going to have are either going to be adopted or technically a different species before the two of them got up the nerve to confess to each other. He does hope Phoenix gets it a bit more together at some point, though, and is worried that Miles and Phoenix’s very different career goals might bring them into conflict with each other, if Phoenix decides he wants to travel to learn and/or perform elsewhere, whereas Miles’s plans rather require him to stay put for his whole life. He’s got his fingers crossed that it works out, though, he likes Phoenix.

(Basically, sexism is a thing that’s actively included and addressed in AtLA, so I feel required to at least acknowledge that it exists in this AU, especially since it’s way before AtLA happens, but no one says a blessed thing about anyone having any issues with anyone else’s sexuality, so I’m making it a [sexuality]phobia-free zone! Because frankly sexism is a big enough headache to deal with on its own, ain’t touching that other stuff if I don’t have to. (for anyone wondering how this approach applies to transexuality, I have always and will always place gender above sex in regards to accuracy for that sort of thing, but a bone-deep terror of Getting Something Wrong And Misrepresenting means I don’t generally write about it (have I had a panic attack every time I’ve ever accidentally misgendered someone and they gently corrected me? Yes, yes I have, I handle personally making this sort of mistake really badly). My compromise for this is that I do my best to generally write things so that my readers can easily insert their own headcanons into the space my silence leaves. There are other people out there who are much better equipped to write about this topic than me, so I tend to let them do it and focus instead on the topics I can write well and confidently, like emotional healing and learning healthy self-care techniques.))


	43. Wait, DRAGONS!!!

Wait a minute, for the Ace Avatar AU, the Avatar-setting version is a thousand years before Aang was born, that means it was a good way before Sozin was born, meaning Sozin hadn’t declared open season on dragons yet, _there are still dragons running around willy-nilly in this era_!!!

Okay, people, cast your votes, which of the Ace Benders do we want to have end up adopting a baby dragon somehow, my current thoughts are Phoenix (firebender), Klavier (firebender and also baby Klavier with baby dragon <3), Simon (Taka = dragon now in this scenario), or Sebastian (Sebbie learning some confidence by caring for something else, also it’s cute). Thoughts? Opinions? Phone now, our callers are waiting on the line!

anon: I Vote Klavier For Dragons

anon: what if the whole reason seb thinks he can bend (in the avatar setting of the au) is because blaise was using a dragon to convince him? either convincing him the dragon's fire is his or convincing him that a dragon would only become attached to a firebender? the alternative of seb having a dragon unrelated to that is also cute though

naratriestowrite: I vote simon or klavier

tirmel: What about the chaotic answer all of the above? Multiple baby dragons running around with them all at once

lees-got-writers-block: Phoenix! he could name it Charley! :)

neliakey: I'm very onboard with Phoenix adopting a baby dragon!!!!

Okay, so at the moment the votes stand two votes for Phoenix, two for Klavier, one for Simon, one for Sebastian, and one for All-out Anarchy. Also, while the ‘Blaise uses a dragon to make Sebbie think he can firebend’ is a cool idea, and Blaise himself is a firebender, Sebastian’s mom is Earth Kingdom and Blaise had Sebastian convinced he could earthbend, just because, of all the elements, I feel fire would be the one that’s basically impossible to convince someone they can bend when they can’t. It’s one of the reasons he gravitates to Miles in the Avatar-setting, because Miles is willing to teach him earthbending forms when Sebastian wants to keep going with it even though he knows Sebastian is a non-bender.

Back on the topic of dragons, I’m going to wait just a bit longer before deciding what to go with as AU canon, give people more time to make their suggestions, because while all the ones I’ve gotten some good ideas going, I want to give people plenty of time to make their ideas known, time zones and all that being what they are.

Thank you everyone for your contribution thus far!

I personally vote Sebby getting the dragon since it could be a good way for him to A, be more comfortable with fire after whatever fiasco happens with his dad (like say the mistaken kidnapping happens in this AU) or B, help him realize what it means to bend/ to live life. Also having parallels of him and Apollo with Zuko and Aang's meeting with the dragons but the disposition's being switched could be real interesting

Anonymous

So that’s two votes for Phoenix, two for Klavier, two for Sebbie, one for Simon, and one for All Out Dragon Anarchy!

I think what happens in the Avatar-setting of this AU is pretty different than canon, since Sebastian’s only ten here. I think the situation would be more along the lines of the Ace Benders getting into a confrontation with Blaise and Sebastian springing to action to help his father… except he wasn’t supposed to be there, he got here by giving his ‘earthbending master’ the slip, so when he springs onto the field and confidently takes his stance and tries to launch an attack at the bad people attacking his father… nothing happens. And nothing happens. And _nothing happens_ and he doesn’t understand, he’s- he’s and _earthbending prodigy_ , he’s doing everything like he always has, so why-?!?

Because, his father reveals, Sebastian was never a prodigy. He was never even an earthbender, all he’s ever been is a cover for his ‘earthbending teacher,’ who is one of Blaise’s henchmen, a useful alibi and someone who can take the fall if it’s ever needed. An easily sacrificed pawn. Nothing more.

And now that he’s gone and pulled this stunt, he’s not really worth anything alive. But if, say, the Ace Benders were to kill him while attacking Blaise unprovoked, that would aid Blaise’s plans very well indeed, especially when they have a decently-trained firebender in their group. Now be useful for once in your pathetic life, boy. Hold still and die for your father.

And Sebastian doesn’t mean to, but he just… freezes. He’s in shock, he can’t move, he can see the flames coming at him, but he _can’t move_ -

Then the earth moves underneath his feet and he falls over into waiting arms just in time for the enemy firebender to go flying over his head and part his father’s flames before they can touch him, and the enemy earthbender is tossing him to the other man in their group and ordering him to get Sebastian and the rest of the kids out of there and then it all gets kind of blurry for awhile.

Sebastian gets away from Larry at some point and runs away, because he’s ten and he can’t fully process all this as being true, as having happened. Miles finds him desperately trying to earthbend, because if he can earthbend, then none of what just happened was real, but he _can’t_. And Miles, wonder of wonders, manages to calm him down and convince him to travel with their group for his own safety and, long story short, Miles ends up acquiring one (1) son/little brother.

So yeah, that’s what happens with Blaise.

I do really like the idea of Sebastian becoming the unintended parent of a dragon, however, a really young one that’s still tiny and only hatched recently, and it does help him heal from what happened with Blaise, prove to him that he can be useful and competent, even if he’ll never bend an element. This is kind of what I’m leaning towards at the moment for the dragon scenario, with the Full On Dragon Anarchy being the eventual outcome when Sebbie’s dragon eventually has babies and decides that Phoenix and Klavier would be good caretakers. ;)

Idk what is this dragon thing but yeah I'd really like to see Sebby with one. After all he's small kid who's soft and he doesn't have any bending. Let him "firebend" by petting the dragon!

[lyxine](https://lyxine.tumblr.com/)

It’s basically the result of me realizing, “Holy crap, the Avatar-setting is in a time when we still have dragons running around all over the place, _one of the Ace Benders could have a dragon_!” And then I opened the floor for suggestions on who that person should be, because I didn’t have a strong feeling about it one way or the other.

After getting some opinions on it (including yours), I’m thinking it is Sebastian who ends up with a tiny baby dragon, not because he doesn’t have any bending, but because I think the chance to care for another living thing, to have something with the potential to be so powerful but which is currently so dependent on him, would be a really good, healing experience after what he’s gone through with his father. He doesn’t need bending to be useful, or competent, or strong, he can be all of those things just as he is. :)

Sebastian should get a dragon because he deserves a nice scaly dog.

Anonymous

You understand me, Anon, and yes, yes he does! <3


	44. Sucks to be Kristoph

For the Ace Avatar AU, AA-setting and Avatar-setting: since Kristoph is a fairly weak firebender and Phoenix is a relatively strong one, Phoenix can just exert a little effort and snuff out Kristoph’s flames if he wants to. Like, it’s not even worth Kristoph’s time to _try_ firebending at Phoenix unless Phoenix is fully restrained, because Phoenix can just ‘lol, nope’ and put out Kristoph’s strongest flames with minimal effort.

And then, for the Avatar-setting, once Klavier joins the Ace Benders and Phoenix starts teaching him and learns that Klavier’s only real problem with bending is that Kristoph’s been undermining his self-confidence his entire life, Phoenix teaches Klavier how to put out an enemy’s flames too.

Kristoph is not a happy camper.

Also, I’m kind of adoring having an AU where Phoenix is Klavier’s firebending teacher, it opens up a whole new spectrum of interaction for the two of them that’s really fun to play with!


	45. I'M SORRY NAHYUTA!!!

I FRICKIN’ FORGOT ABOUT NAHYUTA, I _KNEW_ I WAS FORGETTING SOMEONE IN THE ACE AVATAR AU, FRIGGIN-!!!!

So yeah, Nahyuta’s in the Avatar AU now, he’s an airbender, because of course he’s an airbender, in the Avatar-setting he’s from the same temple as Apollo and Trucy, Amara’s the master of the temple, Dhurke’s her lover/husband, Datz is a guy from the Earth Kingdom who converted to Air Nomadism, Nahyuta wasn’t at the temple when it was attacked because he was out on a trip with Dhurke, when he gets back and finds his basically-brother gone he saddles up his own baby sky bison and sets off to find him, because he is ten and already has his arrows because he’s That Good because it’s Nahyuta and the guy’s practically airbending in canon already with that scarf of his and-

…oh crap, and he doesn’t even know it, but he’s pulling a Zuko, because he’s desperately hunting the avatar so he can bring him back to his home. Except its their home and he doesn’t know Apollo’s the avatar.

Also I seem to have created a world where Nahyuta’s bald, and I feel like I should apologize for that. I’m sure he would rock it, but sorry anyway.

lyxine asked: In your Avatar AU I wonder if Nahyuta has any kind of knowledge about stealth or riot techniques? No in between.

**pangolian: i wonder what happens when avatar- nayhuta finds apollo. also where’s rayfa in the story**

Rayfa is 10-11 years younger than Nahyuta, so, since Nahyuta himself is ten in this, Amara is currently pregnant with her and near her due date! (I decided early on that for the Avatar-setting I wanted Miles and Phoenix to be twenty, so everyone else from AA is scaled to the corresponding age they would have been when Miles and Phoenix were twenty, which is why baby Trucy and also Athena and Pearl staying home)

For the AA-setting, Nahyuta probably is more open about knowing riot techniques, given his background, but hides the fact that he knows stealth ones as well. Not only that, he probably used his stealth techniques more often as a rebel than he did the more aggressive ones, because they were in hiding, which requires, you know, _stealth_. ;)

Now, in the Avatar-setting Nahyuta’s an Air Nomad, he’s grown up in the same temple as Apollo, Trucy, Amara, Dhurke, Datz, Thalassa, and Jove, and a bunch of other Air Nomad kids, it’s a time of peace, and he’s ten years old and already has his mastery arrows (because can I truly call this an AA AU without any prodigies? I think we all know I Cannot. (the other two prodigies are Simon (waterbending) and Franziska (chi-blocking, martial arts, and anything else she cares to put her mind to, it’s Franziska, she is a Genius)).

Naturally this Nahyuta has never had to sneak a day in his life until the day he has to run away with his sky bison to Save Apollo and Trucy from the Bad People!

He can, however, make tornadoes.

And descend from the heavens like a tiny, wrathful god, because maybe he’s a master, but _he_ doesn’t know the Ace Benders are the ones helping Apollo (and he probably comes upon them in a compromising situation, like one of the many times they’re trying to put pants back on Maya), from the looks of things these are just more Bad People and it gets very tense before Apollo flies up on Clay to reassure him that everything’s all right.

Nahyuta’s the last member of the Ace Benders to join the group, prior to that he’s pulling a Zuko but with much less success than Zuko enjoyed in regards to the task. Then again, Zuko had a clearer idea of what he was doing than Nahyuta does, so that’s somewhat fair. And Nahyuta did find Apollo in under three years, so he’s still winning. Sorry, Zuko.


	46. The Ace Benders vs Team Evil: FIGHT!

How do the Ace Benders fight Team Evil? You mentioned that Miles is the offensive, Phpenix is the distraction, and Apollo is the Avatar. How about Truce and Larry?

[justanother--fan](https://justanother--fan.tumblr.com/)

Miles and Phoenix are really more a pair of tandem fighters - they work off of and defend each other almost instinctively at this point, it’s a sight to behold - though yes, as you said, Miles is the main offensive and Phoenix is the distraction, as previously established-

And everyone else in the frickin’ group is basically a non-combatant. Apollo is _nine_ , even after they find out he’s the avatar, they still don’t let him near any battles if they can help it - anyone under thirteen has exactly one job in a fight, and that is to get away as fast as possible and as far as possible, and the only reason the thirteen-year-olds are are allowed to fight is that this group consists of Franziska, Simon, and Maya. Mostly Franziska and Simon, Maya’s a non-combatant for the most part.

Larry’s job in any fight is to protect the kids. And as that is what Edgey and Nick trust him to do, you better believe that that’s what he’s _going_ to do. He helps them get away, carries them if he has to, helps them hide, draws fire to himself, anything he can do to up their chances of survival, he does. He might not be a fighter like Miles or Phoenix, but disaster often dogs his heels, and he’s learned to use it to his advantage at times when he really needs to.

Larry, Miles, and Phoenix are all twenty, and twenty is very different from sixteen or young teenager - none of them ever really forget how young these kids are, or how unprepared they are to fight fully-grown adults with years of experience on them. If any of the kids _ever_ have to fight, for any reason, they apologize for letting things come to that afterwards.

As for how they fight Team Evil… it involves a lot of running away and being very confused. They figure out Apollo’s the avatar about halfway through the whole mess, but even then that doesn’t tell them what Team Evil wants him for, and they really don’t have much idea who to go to for help with this. They probably keep trying to get to the various air temples and prevented from doing so for various reasons, because Team Evil does _not_ want Apollo to rejoin his people - the Air Nomads are pacifists, but they’re not _stupid_ , and there’s a lot of them. There are a _lot_ of ways to disable your enemy without hurting them, especially when airbending is an option.

Also, while I have been using ‘Team Evil’ as a sort of placeholder name, I just realized that it’s 100% canon in-universe and Larry came up with it.


	47. We need funds

You have mentioned the trio doing odd bending jobs to earn money? Thoughts to what kind of jobs they do (especially the Larry "Disaster Bender" Butz)

[justanother--fan](https://justanother--fan.tumblr.com/)

Even in the Avatar-setting, Larry’s still an artist. Heck, in AA canon Larry’s actually pretty dang talented when it comes to making stuff - he made those two Thinker clocks from scratch and making clocks is _really hard_! And, since he grew up helping out wherever he could to help earn his keep in the Avatar-setting, Larry’s actually got the most diverse skill set of the Ace benders, with everything from fishing to house repair to working in gardens. It’s kind of a shock to everyone when they all realize that Larry’s kind of the breadwinner of the group due to this, Larry himself is _stunned_.

When they arrive at a town and need money, Larry and Miles usually go off together to find out whose hiring while Phoenix keeps an eye on the kids and also checks around to see if he’ll be allowed to do a fire performance that night. Larry’s more skilled at the jobs that he and Miles generally end up doing, but Miles is good at keeping Larry on task and diverting any disasters that may try to pop up. Occasionally Miles gets hired for his own skills as an earthbender or because he knows how to read. Phoenix and the kids handle getting any supplies they need and preparing for and announcing the night’s show if there’s going to be one while all this is going on.

When evening comes, childcare duties switch over to Larry, and if it’s been okayed, Phoenix will go to wherever he’s holding his performance, wait for a crowd to gather, and then get to it. He’s actually way more nimble and acrobatic in this universe than he is in the AA-setting and especially more than he is in canon, since he’s been practicing martial arts via bending and also training to be a performer most of his life. Miles often makes him a temporary stage and also works as a stage hand for Phoenix while he’s performing, and doing stuff like making and tossing simple earth discs for Phoenix to target. One Klavier’s been traveling with them and training with Phoenix for awhile, he eventually starts joining in with these performances, too!

Sometimes Phoenix’s performances will get them a good pay out if he does an especially good job or the audience is feeling generous, but what Larry and Miles bring in is steadier and more reliable.


	48. We are stone

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> (Set in the Ace Avatar AU, Avatar-setting, very shortly after Sebastian found out that he’s not really a bender and his father tried to kill him. Reminder, Sebastian is ten, Miles is twenty.)

Sebastian has devolved to thumping the bolder with his fist and chanting, “Move, move, just _move-”_ and _not_ crying when he is finally found. The person coming up behind him makes no effort to hide their presence, and Sebastian spins to face him, trying for feldspar stance but overreaching and stumbling, and oh, oh no, it’s _him_ , it’s the enemy earthbender, even though Sebastian’s eyes feel all achy from cr- from _not_ crying, he can still tell it’s him, recognizes the grey hair, and this man took on Sebastian’s father and apparently _won_ and Sebastian can’t fight, he can’t fight, he _can’t bend_ -

“That was sloppy.”

“What?” the question pops out mostly without Sebastian’s permission.

“Your stance,” the earthbender replies, not angry, not kind, simply stating a fact, “The shift to feldspar stance goes like _this_.” And he _turns his back_ on Sebastian, then, in a smooth movement, turns towards him again into a perfect stance, weight shifting, feet moving like they’re connected to the ground beneath them, ready to fight, to defend himself… to attack. Except Sebastian only has a moment to panic before the man rises to stand normally again. “Did you see how I shifted my weight? The secret is to turn without moving your torso forward or backward, only around. Now you try.”

It- Sebastian doesn’t understand, this doesn’t make sense, but _nothing_ makes sense, and if he does what this man wants, maybe he won’t get attacked…? With a deep breath, Sebastian lowers himself and attempts to turn into the stance. Again, he stumbles.

The man tsks at him. “You move too quickly.”

“I do not!” again Sebastian can’t help the words popping out, “You have to be quick, or else-”

“You move too quickly,” the man cuts him off, unshakeable, unbreakable, “Speed is for air, haste for fire, but earth is stillness. We are not fire, we are not air, we are not water, we are soil, we are _stone_ , and we move when the time is right, not a moment before, not a moment after. And when that moment comes,” he pauses, centers himself, breathes, then brings a foot down, sends the bolder Sebastian had been making no progress against flying into the air, sends it crashing down again with a kick, “We _act_. We do not bend, we do not break, and we answer to no other force.”

Sebastian stares, starts to ask a question- then remembers, bites his lip, feels tears threatening as he looks away. “You’re stone. I’m… not. I’m nothing.”

A strange look crosses the man’s face, and for a moment Sebastian fears that he’s crossed a line. But the man only ends up rubbing his own forehead with a groan. “Why they thought it should be _me_ \- ugh, come here.”

Sebastian doesn’t move.

The man stares at him for a moment, then rolls his eyes and collapses into a perfect lotus position. “Fine, stay there. But close your eyes.”

“…why?”

“Just do it!”

Sebastian gulps and obeys.

“Widen your stance into limestone. Yes, like that. Now focus. Breathe in through your hands, out through your feet, _feel_ what is beneath them- no, don’t ask questions, just do as I say.”

The man is talking nonsense - breathe through his _hands_? What does that even mean?! But Sebastian has nothing left to lose, and he does his best.

“Slower. Remember, you are stone. Other elements break on you. Other elements wait on _you_.”

He breathes slower, then deeper so as to make the slower breathing easier, and is surprised to hear a sound of approval for this.

“Good. Now, without leaving your stance, shift your feet - _gently_ \- and feel the ground beneath them. Feel every grain of dirt, the stones within it, the stone beneath it. Feel as deep as you can. You are stone. You are a mountain, and mountain roots run deepest of all.”

More nonsense, but it’s… nice nonsense? He likes the image of being a mountain, of watching clouds circle around his head and feeling his feet deep, deep in the ground, toes stretching and wiggling and making the earth shake…

“Good,” the man approves again, stomps the ground and though Sebastian bounces up a little when it shakes, he lands steady on his feet this time without even opening his eyes. “Very good. You know the first earthbending kata?”

“Yes.” the word feels like it’s been pulled from somewhere deep.

“Do it now, as a mountain. Slow. Strong. Move when you are ready, not before, not after. Keep your eyes closed.”

Sebastian has always been proud of how quickly he can get through his kata, ‘fast as lightning’ his father has always praised him. He has never been slow before, not on purpose. But then, he has never been a mountain before, has never felt quite so… steady. Solid. He has been training since he was five, but it has never felt quite like _this_ before…

So slowly, step by step, move by move, stance by stance, Sebastian goes through the first kata, one he knows so well that it is not effort to do with his eyes closed, but it has never felt like _this_ before. When he finishes, he returns to his starting stance and simply waits. He doesn’t know what’s going on, he doesn’t know what the man wants, but he hasn’t hurt him so far, even though Sebastian is not a bender after all, even though Sebastian is _less_ -

“Now open your eyes and see what you have done.”

Sebastian obeys, confused again, and finds himself at eye level with the man. Looks down and finds himself standing on an irregular ring of rock jutting several feet into the air, and all the calm that had somehow snuck up on him vanishes in an instant, because the path is so _narrow_ , and high enough that if- if he had fallen with his eyes closed-!

The thought of it alone sends all semblance of balance from him and Sebastian shrieks, his arms windmilling as he starts to fall-

-and lands in the man’s arms, steady, safe, as he had back in his father’s hall, steady a stone, gentle as new-turned soil. The man catches him, turns with the momentum of the fall and lands Sebastian safely on his own feet, hands remaining until it is clear that Sebastian has his balance again.

“It-! What did I-? What did _you_ -?!”

“That ring is the path of the first kata of earthbending,” the man tells him, “With a thumb’s width of leeway on either side. And you walked it perfectly, with your eyes closed. I know some grown benders who can’t do the same. Your form needs some work, but you have talent.”

“But- but I can’t _bend_.”

“So what?”

“What?”

“So what?” the man repeats, folding his arms, a finger tapping one bicep, “There are still things to be learned from the kata even if you never shift a pebble. You have the skill to learn those things, and, if you are willing, I will teach you.”

“But I can’t _bend_.” Sebastian repeats, unsure what else to say.

The man rolls his eyes, turns and walks away, and, oh, maybe- maybe this was a test, and if he’s leaving then that means Sebastian fai-

The man turns so he’s facing a little to Sebastian’s left, closes his eyes, and breathes. And, as he breathes, his entire stance changes, as though he is rising without moving, and when whatever is rising has shifted from the mans hips to his stomach, he _moves_.

And it’s nothing like earthbending - rooted, firm, yes, but aggressive, fast, with more kiyups adding emphasis to the moves, a spinning leap than ends with the man punching the ground and not leaving a mark.

Sebastian _gapes_. “That… wasn’t an earthbending kata, was it?”

“No.”

“It was… fire?”

“Yes.”

Sebastian hesitates as the man breathes again, settles himself back into the state he had been before the fire kata. “… _why_?”

“Because my partner is a firebender, and I wished to understand him better, and to move with him more efficiently when we must do battle. So, a few years ago, I began to study basic firebending kata. The avatar may be the only one who can _bend_ all four elements, but we all have something to learn from them.” he walks forward, puts a hand on Sebastian’s shoulder. “You’ll never bend, no. That is not a gift you were born with. But that also means you are not limited. Benders are expected to learn their own element, nothing else. You are not a bender - you may take any path you care to. However, should you wish to continue earth, I will teach you what I know of it.”

Sebastian’s mind is reeling at this sudden reframing of the world, of the concept of what he has always been taught is ‘less’ potentially being ‘more,’ and, in the maelstrom, he latches onto the one thing he understands, the thing he had thought he’d _lost_ , “I… can keep learning earthbending? Really?”

“Yes.”

“But- my pops- my father- he-”

“Is a foolish man who doesn’t deserve you,” the man says, not a comfort but a statement, a fact, carved in stone, “And… it would be best for you to accompany us even if you do not wish to learn - at least until we can find you a place to stay where he cannot hurt you.”

Sebastian stares up at him for a moment, trying to spot the catch, the lie, the mockery, but there is none of it. He looks back at the ring of stone the earthbender had formed, climbs up and takes limestone stance, starts moving through the first kata again, with his eyes open this time. And it’s scary, doing this so high up, on such a narrow path, but the man had been right - there’s just enough room for him to perform each step, and he ends where he had begun. When he checks, the man looks approving again, approving the way his teacher never had when Sebastian asked questions or second-guessed him. “…why’d you get me to do this? You didn’t know I’d be able to. What if I’d failed?”

For some reason the man looks away, rubbing his left arm almost awkwardly. “I, um. I had a feeling. That you’d be able to. And it was the first thing I could think of when you said you were nothing to prove to you that you aren’t.”

“…okay.”

“Okay?” the man’s brow furrows.

Perhaps he’s expected to say it more formally? So Sebastian climbs down from from the first kata path, then stands before the man and bows formally. “Please allow me the honour of traveling with your group and training under you, sir.”

“…really?” the man seems… surprised when Sebastian looks up from his bow at him, almost confused, “Are you sure? I- I haven’t made a particularly good- there are more reasons for coming with us than I’ve given, are you quite sure you wish to decide so quickly-?”

And, somehow, this eases the last of the doubt from Sebastian’s mind that he is making the right choice. That this man who is like stone, who can say things with even more certainty than Sebastian’s father does, can still fluster and doubt himself… suddenly his offers of training, of safety, of _acceptance_ are the realest thing in the world. “Yes, sir. I’m sure.”

“…Miles,” the man offers awkwardly, “My name is Miles Edgeworth, of the Niponia port in the Earth Kingdom.”

“I’m Sebastian, son of Fire Master Blaise and Lady Shiying,” he bows again, “Please teach me well, Master Edgeworth.”

“Very well,” Master Edgeworth agrees, some of his former confidence returning, and he bows back to Sebastian, shallower, as befitting master to student. Then he straightens and - after a moment’s hesitation - offers his hand. “We should rejoin the others, they’ll be wondering where we are, and we need to get back on the road soon.”

Sebastian doesn’t hesitate to take Master Edgeworth’s hand. It’s smooth and reassuring, like a rock taken from a river. Master Edgeworth is probably taking a risk by taking Sebastian in like this - his father is a powerful man, after all, and Master Edgeworth and his friends have defied him - and Sebastian wants to start proving that he’ll be a good student as soon as possible.

Master Edgeworth startles, almost like he hadn’t really expected his offer to be taken, but his hand wraps around Sebastian’s before he has a chance to regret, and his new teacher smiles at him. “Welcome to the Ace Benders, Sebastian.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> All kata I know of in irl martial arts, if done correctly, are begun and finished in the exact same spot, with the artist facing the exact same direction as they were when they started, which is part of what sparked the idea for this.


	49. Non-bending Master of All Four Elements

…oh gods, Sebastian’s going to end up mastering all four bending styles, I just realized it, he’s going to become a non-bending equivalent of the avatar just because Miles gave him a half-panicked motivational speech about being a non-bender meaning that Sebastian doesn’t have to limit himself to one element, and it’s _absolutely_ going to end-result in Sebastian going, “In that case, I choose all of them!”

He starts off just learning earth from Miles, but then he remembers that Miles knows some firebending kata too, so he goes up to Phoenix and Klavier’s lessons all “Can I join too?” and Phoenix _melts_ and goes absolutely yes. And from there it’s just natural to start joining Apollo when Apollo’s practicing his own forms, because why not, and by the time they get to the South Pole Sebastian takes one look at Simon and is like, “You, you’re gonna teach me waterbending.” And it’s _Simon_ , it’s a Simon who’s thirteen and still a total cinnamon roll, of course he’s gonna say yes, and someday, when they’re both in their thirties, Sebastian’s _still_ going to be teasing Apollo because, yeah, you may be the avatar, but I mastered all four elements first so you will always be reduced to noisy little brother status with me, so there. (Apollo loves/hates this)

Also, Sebastian’s probably going to be a total nightmare for any actual benders to fight, just on the grounds that there’s a good chance he knows their forms better than they do and also how the heck do you fight a non-bender who’s using bending moves at you, that’s gonna cause some _major_ mental error messages for most people.

…I was not intending this to be the universe where Sebastian gets to have all the nice things, but, you know what, I’m okay with it, I’m good with the Ace Benders going, “You’re gonna have to be more specific” when people demand they hand over the avatar because they’ve been jokingly calling _Sebastian_ the avatar for a couple months before they find out, oh, um, we actually _are_ traveling with the avatar, it’s just he’s Apollo, not Sebastian, huh, did not see that one coming.

**[lyxine](https://lyxine.tumblr.com/) **

Sebastian: not bending Also Sebastian: Earthbending kicking hard the opponent

**[user-nomen](https://user-nomen.tumblr.com/) **

Yesss and Sebastian’s going to be [[accidentally]] kidnapped, mistaken as the avatar.

Sebastian is _absolutely_ going to get stolen at some point when word finally gets out that, hey, these people are traveling with the avatar, but which one was it??? “The short kid with brown eyes and brown hair that sticks up who’s learning more than one bending style, duh.”

Except... there’s two kids like that in the group, and one of them is the avatar and one of them is Sebastian, who is actively learning as much bending as possible, and the other is Apollo, who’s still working on his airbending. And Apollo is _nine_ and scared and the only reason the adults of the group are teaching him extra bending styles at this age is that they have _no idea_ what they’re doing, they didn’t sign up to be traveling with the frickin’ _avatar_ , what- what do you even _do_ with an avatar?!? “I dunno, teach it all the bending styles?” “TEACH IT ALL THE BENDING STYLES!!!!”

So Apollo learns about the first four kata of earth, water, and fire, and a little of each of their philosophies, but otherwise doesn’t have too much pressure put on him to do more because Phoenix, Miles, and, to a lesser extent, Larry (because, of the three of them, Larry is the only one with any chill about this (and isn’t _that_ a scary thought)) keep going, “Oh my spirits, nine year old child, nine year old airbender child who doesn’t even have his arrows yet, _do not ruin this for him_!!!” and they mostly try to keep treating him like a kid and he doesn’t start his official avatar training until he’s sixteen, as the spirits and gods intended, because there’s no pressing reason to.

In contrast, Sebastian, once he really internalizes the fact that the people he’s traveling with will teach him anything he wants to know about bending, just goes at learning everything possible hammer and tongs, and figuring out how to adjust bending forms so that they’re useful for non-benders and, as lyxine pointed out, a kick that’s meant to propel a bolder into your enemy is just as effective if you’re using said kick to propel your foot into their stomach. He’s allowed to learn all four elements and, by golly, HE’S GOING TO!!!

So, ironically enough, by the time Apollo starts his avatar training, Sebastian’s been doing basically the same thing for seven years, at least when it comes to the bending parts of it, and ends up offering Apollo tips and tricks and similarities and differences between the styles and elements and everything he’s learned. Apollo ends up picking all this stuff up faster than Sebastian has (because, Avatar), but, as I said before, Sebastian always has the “yeah, but I did it first” card to play. Depending on how he’s feeling that day, Apollo either responds to that grumpily or plays along with the joke, “Fine, if you’ve been doing it so much longer then _you_ be the avatar, I’m tired, I want a vacation, you know how many years I’ve been doing this for, _lifetimes_ , that’s how many years, it’s someone else’s turn.”

And the nickname ‘Avatar Sebastian’ never really goes away, and that’s another thing the whole group jokes around with for the rest of their lives, including Sebastian and Apollo who will 100% go “How are you feeling today, Avatar Sebastian,” “Very well, thank-you for asking, Avatar Apollo,” and the rest of the world is ??? and it’s great.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Wildfey on tumblr did some gorgeous art for this AU, and you can find it [here](https://greentrickster.tumblr.com/post/624020706428157952/wildfey-so-recently-ive-been-reading-uh-a-lot)! This is now absolutely how I picture Phoenix and Miles dressing in the Avatar-setting, btw, though I'm always open to new ideas!


	50. Worlds Collide

justanother--fan asked: (Ace Attorney Setting) Remember when Phoenix fell from a burning bridge? Did the fact that he firebends help him survive?

greentrickster answered:

Ooo, AA-setting, haven’t done that in awhile! And, honestly? No, it didn’t. He may have used it a bit on the bridge itself to better protect himself from the flames, and even extinguish patches of them, but he’s a high mid-range strength bender - he’s nowhere near powerful enough to pull off Azula’s flying-with-fire trick. And he fell forty feet into cold water - if he’d entered that water from the shore then yes, he might have been able to regulate his body heat to survive it better, but he didn’t do that, he plummeted into it, and likely got shocked from the impact as much as the sudden cold, and both would have left him unable to focus enough to bend in any useful manner.

**TL;DR:** not even magical fire powers are enough to explain Phoenix’s unrivaled survival powers. ;)

Thanks for the ask!

justanother--fan: The Ace Attorney setting is also fun to play with! The fact that Miles might have deformed the prosecution’s desk by slamming his desk as an earthbender (•ө•)

Can Phoenix bend lightning, too? Manfred’s taser comes to mind.

greentrickster

It is! Though Miles probably wouldn’t have done that because 1) no way he has the control to be a metalbender, even if it’s around in the AA-setting, Miles doesn’t start properly training with his earthbending until after DL-6 is resolved and 2) it’s not even made of metal, it’s made of wood. ;)

While I think that Phoenix would eventually be able to achieve the spiritual balance required to bend lightning, he’s actually more likely to learn how to do that in the Avatar-setting than the AA-setting. All the characters are much more powerful benders in the Avatar-setting than they are in the AA-setting due to the simple fact that they’ve trained a lot more over there. Avatar-setting!Phoenix can do spin-kicks and hand flips and very small amounts of blue flames (generally for his blossoming fire trick) and is very skilled with his fire. AA-setting!Phoenix has the coordination of canon!Phoenix and can control his flames well enough that he’s not setting anything on fire by mistake, can maybe do a handful of kata and some party tricks, but he focused his time and energy on first becoming an actor and then a lawyer. Basically he focused on different things in the different settings, and his bending reflects that.

If AA-setting!Phoenix saw what Avatar-setting!Phoenix can do with his bending, he’d be stunned, and probably a little embarrassed and jealous that this twenty-year-old version of him is so coordinated and skilled, AA-setting!Phoenix has never been that fit or athletic in his entire _life._

Meanwhile, Avatar-setting!Phoenix would be looking at AA-setting!Phoenix and going, wait, you can read? You can _write_? Just, like, sit down and _write_? Even Miles can’t do that, and he’s Super Educated!!! …maybe I should have studied more, I feel kinda dumb now.

(Edgeworth, having overheard this exchange: Excuse me, I can’t _what_.)

Basically, both Phoenixs would have things they admire each other for and feel kind of insecure about having not learned themselves, now that they’re seeing the potential they have to be good at them, but they’re still Phoenix, so they’d probably get over it soon enough and bond over cheap ramen and both having such good taste in boyfriends. ;)

justanother--fan

Silly me, I COMPLETELY forgot that earthbenders can’t bend wood!

We NEED both settings to fuse! I want to see Miles interacting with Miles, consoling him about the loss of his father

Thinking about Diego just casually waterbending coffee into Phoenix’s head. Also using waterbending to prevent the blood from falling (“In my world, the color red doesn’t exist. These must be… my tears.” )

I am positively tearbending now. Lemme just… stop now >__

greentrickster

Eh, we all make mistakes. ;)

Oh yes, crossing universes is definitely one of the fun parts of this sort of AU, but I don’t think Avatar-setting!Miles would be in a great position to help AA-setting!Miles - their life experiences are so wildly different, I think they’d have a hard time relating to each other at first. Now, AA-setting!Miles running into Avatar-setting!Gregory? _That_ would be the meeting when consolation and comfort would take place. It would be strange, because AA-setting!Gregory died when he was 36/37, so Avatar-setting!Gregory is older than his counterpart ever got, being in his forties now. But he’s still a very good, kind man with a decent amount of wisdom and a lot of love for his son.

The Mileses’ big interaction probably comes when Avatar-setting!Miles looks around and goes, “Oma and Shu, _where’s Kay_?!?” And AA-setting!Miles goes “She’s right here with m- oh, wait, no she’s not- wait, you’re not talking about my Kay, are you, _mein Gott, there’s_ ** _two of her_**?!?” And then they go on a life-changing field trip to try and catch two (2) Kay Faradays and one (1) Avatar-setting!Sebastian who tagged along with them.

AA-setting!Diego can barely bend at all anymore after his run-in with Dahlia - he used to be pretty danged skilled at it, probably one of the better benders in the AA-setting, but now he finds it very difficult and it takes a lot of effort (I did mention this in the first post I declared him a waterbender, but it was ages ago, so I’m not surprised you didn’t remember). But you are right that his confrontation with his alternate self would be the cause of a lot of tearbending. After all, Avatar-setting!Diego still has _everything_ his counterpart lost - his health, his sight, his bending, his livelihood, his more optimistic outlook on life, and, to top it all off, his version of Mia is still alive and they’re very happy together. This is the one encounter I would probably never write, just because it feels too cruel to AA-setting!Diego, to go and rub his nose in how much he’s lost and how far he fell in the process. There’s nothing really for either of them to gain from it, it might even damage any emotional healing Diego’s done, so I wouldn’t have him meet himself.

I’d have him meet Avatar-setting!Lana. I’d have him learn that here is someone whose counterpart could potentially be positive for him to meet, because I’ve talked Lana-Diego friendship into being important to me.

Now, a pair who _would_ benefit from meeting their counterparts would be the Simon Blackquills. Avatar-setting!Simon would be a reminder of younger AA-setting!Simon’s good points, AA-setting!Simon could warn Avatar-setting!Simon of some of the pitfalls their own personality and mindset can get them into, they would see each other as a warning and an encouragement. And then they’d go sit in a corner and swap bending tips and compare the merits of the boomerang to the katana and just have a grand old time.

And of course the pair that would be most _fun_ to see interact is, naturally, the Apollos. Especially if this meeting is set prior to Clay’s death in the AA-setting and, as a result, no one knows that Apollo’s the avatar yet, because until then nothing had happened to him that was severe enough to get through the mental/spiritual blocks the events of Khura’in and the foster system left him with. So we’d get tiny!Apollo going, “How are you handling being the avatar? Did you find out before you were sixteen, too?” and bigger!Apollo going “I’m the what now?” “But- you’re _old_ , you should know by now! Have you even met your Avataring Master?!?” “I’m not _that_ old, and my _what now_ , the avatar only has bending masters!” “Maybe others do but I’ve got Sebastian, and he mastered all four elements before me, so he’s helping me with it!” “Sebastian- you don’t mean Sebastian DeBeste, do you? …isn’t he a non-bender?” “Yeah, so?”

Good times, good times…

Thinking about it, the Sebastians would also be an interesting meeting, because they have some similar experiences, but AA-setting!Sebastian can’t fight at all and Avatar-setting!Sebastian decided to learn all the bending styles as a non-bender and is a high-caliber martial artist as a result.

(in response to user-nomen's wonderful drawings of the two Apollos interacting, and human!Clay meeting sky bison!Clay and going "Sooooo big guy, you can fly, huh?)

And so you shouldn’t be sorry, because this is Peak Content Right Here!!! Clay would _absolutely_ love meeting Air Nomad Apollo, who would _absolutely_ feel awkward about trying to figure out ‘how do I tell this Grown Man than he is a sky bison in my world,’ and Clay would _absolutely_ jump straight to ‘so you’re saying that in your world I Can Fly’ right off the bat. The Clays would get along, and Avatar-setting!Apollo would eventually just be _super excited_ to be able to actually _talk_ to his best friend and have him answer back in people talk (because he loves bison!Clay, but, you know, _talking_ ), and AA-setting!Apollo is just charmed by this happy, excited version of himself being so eager to talk to Clay, and then they all go for a ride of bison!Clay and it’s great!

Though the Apollos definitely stumble upon human!Clay apparently in deep conversation with bison!Clay and it’s like, “I think… they might actually be talking to each other??? How???” (They’re trading favorite sky facts and stories about their Apollos, they get along well.)

> **TheNamelessNPC:** Omg, now all I can picture is avatar-setting!Phoenix hanging out with AA!Miles, and miles just dropping like a sack of potatoes cause and earthquake and Phoenix just panicking cause. This hasn't? Happened before?????

> Also, if Dalia is traveling with them when the coss happen. The shear _panic_ that AA!Phoenix has when seeing her.....

> Oh no, I meant for this to be more light-heart-y.... oh I know. You think two Kays can cause chaos? I think you're forgetting Avatar-setting Apollo and AA!Trucy (cause Avatar-setting!Trucy is still a baby)

GreenTrickster

Oh yeah, Avatar-setting!Phoenix would be panicking _hard_ at seeing Miles react to an earthquake like that, and would be heartbroken to find out that AA-setting!Miles was so horribly traumatized by his own element. AA-setting!Phoenix has his hands full when he finds the two of them.

Dahlia doesn’t travel with the group for too long - a month at the absolute most - and since I would want a crossover to happen when we have the maximum number of Ace Benders possible, she would be long gone by the time it happened. Avatar-setting!Larry and AA-setting!Phoenix would definitely commiserate with each other over what she did to them, though, the whole thing coming out because it would definitely be a moment that had a strong effect on Larry’s personality, and someone in the AA-setting would definitely ask about it.

Avatar-setting!Apollo is still Apollo, and he’s an Apollo who got raised as an Air Nomad - he’s more playful than AA!Apollo, but he’s got nothing on the full-on chaos beast that is any incarnation of Kay Faraday. He’d absolutely get swept up in the Kays’ shenanigans, though. And, while AA!Trucy is indeed a little scamp, I think in this instance she’d be too busy asking all the Avatar-setting characters a billion questions to get up to more than a little mischief. She’s such a smart person, I think she gets bored easily if she doesn’t have enough to do and think about, and tends to cause mischief when she’s bored. So for once she finally has enough stimulus to keep her fully engaged and entertained for really extended periods of time.

justanother--fan

Think of Miles meeting each other. Avatar-setting!Miles will probably gush over Phoenix and AA-setting!Miles will be flustered. YOUR Phoenix? You have kids? Maybe it will even inspire him to confess! On second thought, nope. Miles will probably be like, it’s a different reality. His Phoenix is different. Wait. HIS Phoenix? Uh oh.

I would also like AA-setting!Miles to meet Avatar-setting!Phoenix with Phoenix not knowing that Miles is from a different reality and being too sweet with him. Miles being just flustered and trying to push him away and Phoenix thinking that his boyfriend is just grumpy and trying to woo him even more. (Is woo the right word? Suyo is the word I’m looking for a translation for. But its meaning is when couples “fight”, usually the female gets grumpy and quiet and the lover just flirts/ says sweet words and just be sweet in general to get (usually) the female to forgive them. Sorry, words fail me right now o_o” )

Cue Avatar-setting!Miles just being jealous. Or maybe just amused?

greentrickster

Avatar!Miles would probably circle AA!Phoenix a few times and go, “I suppose you’re all right, but I prefer _my_ boyfriend, thank-you very much. Though it’s frankly unfair that he’s apparently going to get even _more_ attractive when he gets older, he’s already breath-taking.”

AA!Phoenix: “What.”

AA!Miles: “Thank heavens I’m not the only one who sees it- wait, what do you mean _boyfriend_?!?” (gets very, very flustered)

AA!Phoenix: “WHAT.”

Because, frankly, I live for Miles and Phoenix looking at each other and going, “Damn, he’s too attractive for me.” Plus, I’m sort of picturing this crossover happening shortly after Team Evil has been defeated for the Ace Benders (so Miles and Phoenix are 20) and partway through Dual Destinies for the AA crowd (so that Apollo hasn’t found out he’s the Avatar just yet), because I feel this would lead to maximum hijinks, and also AA!Miles going “Wait, you adopted _how_ many children?!?” And Avatar!Miles going “IT WASN’T ON PURPOSE!” and AA!Miles’s growing sense of dread as he starts recognizing faces and oh- oh no, he’s not ready to be a father to anyone other than maybe Trucy (meanwhile AA!Phoenix is going, “Miles acknowledge your prosecutor children, they deserve to know their father loves them.”)

I think you’re struggling with translation here because we don’t have a word that specifically relates to the situation you’re describing. I get what you’re talking about, we just don’t have a word in English for it - or at least not one that’s commonly used. And, give that Avatar!Miles and Phoenix are about seventeen years younger than their AA!counterparts in this scenario, sadly the differences would be immediately noticeable, so no mistaken identities shenanigans.

Though everyone is _absolutely_ looking between Avatar!Simon and AA!Simon and going wtf happened?!?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> user-nomen did some great art of AA!Apollo and Clay meeting Avatar!Apollo and Clay, and you can see it [here](https://greentrickster.tumblr.com/post/625403930932805632/ace-attorney-setting-remember-when-phoenix-fell), just scroll down!


	51. Aang meets Apollo

anonymous asked:

At this rate, when Aang does spiritual things and talks to Apollo, they're probably going to see the similarities of their situations. Also, who wants to bet that Sebastian is know as the Man who learned all the styles, inspiring Iroh to do the same?

Maybe? Aang and Apollo’s situations aren’t really that similar beyond ‘being chased around by bad people with a group of people who only vaguely know what they’re doing.’ Apollo never has the weight of the world on his shoulders, the entire point of his cross-world journey isn’t “Train you to defeat the head of a powerful nation,” it’s “We will keep you safe until we can find a way to stop these people chasing you.” And at the end of it he gets to return home to his people, who are mostly where he left them when he ran away.

Which is _not_ to say that Apollo isn’t a previous incarnation that Aang enjoys talking to once they meet, because Apollo lived during a time when the world was mainly at peace, so he knows so much, not only about the Air Nomad culture, but about _all_ the cultures that have been lost due to the Fire Nation’s actions, and that Aang never really got to learn about or experience just because, while he’s obviously very into multi-cultural good times himself, he was only twelve at the time. Aang himself has never lived in a world without the fire war - it was only just beginning when he was born, but it was there. Apollo is stuffed full of pieces of culture from all the nations that have been lost to time or erased by the war, and, most of all, can reassure Aang that it is _absolutely possible_ for the four nations to coexist in harmony, for there to be periods of time when any conflict that occurred was mainly internal, not external. (Also, just saying, forget bending all the elements, Aang is a walking goldmine of cultural knowledge thanks to his past lives, probably a lot of scholars out there who’d be very happy if he did nothing but channel his past lives so they could answer historical and cultural details for the rest of his life.)

And yes, Sebastian does go on to be a very prominent figure in both history and folklore, and another inspiration for the people who form the original White Lotus Society. Thinking of what they would call him, yes, he’d definitely be known as the man who learned all the styles, and I think people called him something like the Avatar Master, just because Apollo himself would always joke around, like, “Yup, this is my Earthbending Master, Miles Edgeworth, and my Firebending Master, Phoenix, and my Waterbending Master, Simon, and my Airbending Master, Dhurke, and my Avataring Master, Sebastian.” The non-bender who mastered all the elements.

By the time Roku is born, Sebastian is probably considered a myth or a legend - maybe there was a bender who learned a bit of all four styles, but why would a non-bender learn any sort of bending style, let alone master all four? Something interesting and amazing, but without a huge amount of practical use, so while he would have had some pupils, it either would have died out or become some new form of martial art, it’s been nine-hundred years, writing stuff down wasn’t as common back then. By the time Aang awakens from the iceberg, stories of the Avatar Master are probably mostly gone - that’s not the sort of folk hero the Fire Lord approves of, so stories of him are banned in the Fire Nation, destroyed in other nations when scrolls are found of them, performances of said stories also banned, basically he’s slowly being erased, save for the odd scroll here and there and what remnants the White Lotus has been able to hold onto.

Then Aang decides to spirit chat with Apollo one day and mentions a story Iroh told him about some spirit tale character, a non-bender who mastered all the elemental styles, and Apollo’s like, “Oh, you mean my Avataring Master, Sebastian? Yeah, he did that, but he’s still a goofball who mixes up his words. ...he is better at the earth katas than me, though; if you ever see him, don’t tell him I said that.” “Wait, what,” says Aang, followed by, “Wait, WHAT?!?” says Uncle Iroh when Aang casually lets drop, “Oh, by the way, the Avatar Master was real and his name was Sebastian and he was friends with Avatar Apollo and he mastered all the elemental styles before Apollo.”

Aang’s gonna get mobbed by the entire White Lotus Society when someone eventually figures out that Miles is the Tile-maker, the one who left stone white lotus tiles all over the world and inspired the Society to form in the first place. “What was he like?!?” “An enormous nerd with substandard people skills.” “...oh.”

Also, please consider: Avatar Apollo would _absolutely_ teach Aang the Chords of Steel, imagine that technique being backed up by airbending, talk about shouting your opponents into submission!


	52. Learning to write and the Brothers Gavin

[ ](https://greentrickster.tumblr.com/post/625325219576446976) [ greentrickster ](https://greentrickster.tumblr.com/post/625325219576446976)

Thinking about it, once Franziska joins the Ace Benders, she’s probably going to be the most educated member of the group, since, as the daughter of a nobleman, she’s learned how to read and write and also had lessons in history, politics, and the arts, as well as her chi-blocking. Sebastian and Klavier are tied for next place, as children of slightly less prominent families who are also younger than her, and finally, in fourth place, we have Miles, who can read, possibly sign his name, has some education in the legal system that applies to his home port of Niponia, and probably self-educated wherever he could.

[ ](https://isdisorigionalenoughforyou.tumblr.com/post/625392264327397376) [ isdisorigionalenoughforyou ](https://isdisorigionalenoughforyou.tumblr.com/post/625392264327397376)

(thinking about the franziska, sebastian, klavier, and miles trying and succeeding at various levels to teach people to read and write–) 

AND ALSO please consider klavier combining music with stories to turn teachings, proverbs, and history stuff into like. ballads. he writes a whole-ass musical for phoenix to perform at their next stop and puppy-eyes/ badgers/ makes-a-case on why he should perform it

[ ](https://greentrickster.tumblr.com/post/625559057842028544) [ greentrickster ](https://greentrickster.tumblr.com/post/625559057842028544)

[#my favoritism is showing](https://www.tumblr.com/tagged/my+favoritism+is+showing) [#i am so sorry](https://www.tumblr.com/tagged/i+am+so+sorry) [#BUT](https://www.tumblr.com/tagged/BUT) [#LET HIM BE A BARD](https://www.tumblr.com/tagged/LET+HIM+BE+A+BARD) [#PLEASE GREEN](https://www.tumblr.com/tagged/PLEASE+GREEN) [#PLEASE](https://www.tumblr.com/tagged/PLEASE) [#ace attorney](https://www.tumblr.com/tagged/ace+attorney)

Okay, first, Franziska would _absolutely_ teach Miles how to write, and I find the image of thirteen-year-old Franziska teaching twenty-year-old Miles how to write both charming and sweet, so yes, absolutely, happening, very much so, and he’s a willing student. In contrast, Kay is very much of the ‘you want to teach me, you have to catch me first,’ and _that_ usually ends with both of them too tired to do anything afterwards.

Second, Klavier doesn’t have to do any of that stuff, it’s already being done, heck yes we have the Avatar-equivalent of bards (the only reason I’m not straight-up calling them bards is that it’s a European term and I don’t know the Eastern equivalent). Klavier wants to be a bard? He can _absolutely_ be a bard!

One of the interesting things about Klavier in this setting, however, is that he has approximately 10% of the self-confidence levels we usually see him with. He’s ten and a decently gifted bender, a fact that Kristoph, an actively weak bender, has never been able to stand, he _hates_ that his baby brother is just naturally better at this than him, he shouldn’t _have_ to work harder to be better, Klavier should be naturally inferior to him. So you can bet he’s spent Klavier’s whole life undermining the kid’s confidence in both himself and his bending, while also convincing Klavier that he, Kristoph, cares for him deeply and only wants what’s best for him.

It’s not a pretty situation.

And it just so happens that the first time Klavier _ever_ sneaks out to see a fire performance (“You shouldn’t go to see those, brother, they will only discourage you”) it happens to be Phoenix who’s performing. And for Klavier it’s love at first sight, he wants to be able to play together with fire like that, he wants to _sing_ with fire, and, as luck would have it, Phoenix chooses him to help with a trick, stands him on the stage the earthbender creates so that everyone can see him and holds a flame in his hands and Phoenix stands behind him, hands gently under Klavier’s, and feeds Klavier’s flames with his own ki, red, orange, yellow, white, _blue_ …

And part of Klavier is terrified by the strength and the heat of it, but another, bigger part of him realizes that he’s holding it. That the performer is there and poised to protect him should anything go wrong, but he doesn’t have to because Klavier’s not afraid or panicking, he’s doing everything just right, not letting it scorch his clothes or his skin or his eyebrows, he’s doing this.

He can do this.

The next day Klavier shows up at the Ace Benders’ campsite with a bundle of clothes and some food and _begs_ to be taken on as Phoenix’s apprentice, not because he wants to hold blue fire again, but because he wants to perform again, he wants to inspire the looks he saw on peoples’ faces last night, he wants to sing with his fire. He’s young and he’s unskilled and he doesn’t have much talent, but he’ll work hard and be a good student and just please take him on-!

A couple hijinks happen, and Klavier’s parents give the okay; it’s a nice way to let him travel a bit, and, secretly, they’re sure Klavier will be back soon, after he sees how hard life on the road is. Kristoph seethes, but can say nothing without giving away his true nature.

The Ace Benders continue on, and rather quickly find out that Klavier’s actually has a lot of potential and talent… so why does he so firmly believe he doesn’t? Miles, Phoenix, and Larry are #troubled. Klavier is having a blast and adores his new teacher and Master Miles and Larry and Apollo and Sebastian and Trucy and Maya and Ema (the feeling is not mutual with Ema), and he’s a happy puppy living his best life.

And, a week or so after the Ace Benders leave town, a woman with red hair and knives in her hands and poison in her soul arrives, and she’s not stupid - she can recognize her own kind when she sees them.

She and Kristoph can recognize their own kind when they see them.

They’re smart people, similar people, similar enough to see that they’re different enough to be very, very dangerous to anyone who crosses them if they side together…

[ ](https://justanother--fan.tumblr.com/post/625571544370921472) [ justanother--fan ](https://justanother--fan.tumblr.com/post/625571544370921472)

Add Sebastian conductor to the mix so that we have a whole orchestra!

[ ](https://justanother--fan.tumblr.com/post/625572919691575296) [ justanother--fan ](https://justanother--fan.tumblr.com/post/625572919691575296)

I was originally thinking that the Ace Benders should act on a play about themselves but obviously some of them will disagree soooo

How about we make the Travelling Steel Samurai act on those plays too? Anddd maybe they can create a play about the Ace Benders? Just like the Dai Li that was corrupted over time, they were the Ember Island Players before they butchered plays!!

On a similar note, I would kill to see Trucy and Phoenix perform magic together with Miles supporting them behind the curtains!!

[ ](https://greentrickster.tumblr.com/post/625574394683703296) [ greentrickster ](https://greentrickster.tumblr.com/post/625574394683703296)

I don’t really see the rest of the group participating in the performances outside of Phoenix, Klavier, and Miles, whose role is more that of a stagehand than a performer, he makes stages and platforms for Phoenix to perform on and do tricks off of. Sebastian doesn’t really have a connection to music in the Avatar-setting like he does in AA canon (at least, not as a conductor, he probably still likes it a lot), and what Phoenix does isn’t really acting. He’s more like a fire breather/juggler/acrobat, creating shapes and cool effects with his fire, and possibly telling a story or something to go with it. And, fun as the Ember Island origins could be, this is way in the past, to the point that the Ace Benders would be seen more as figures of folklore than history by the time Roku shows up, let alone Aang.

Also, I just flat-out don’t want to make too many key/prominent elements from AtLA be the result of the Ace Benders’ actions. Miles accidentally kick-starting the Order of the White Lotus makes sense, because he’s fond of tea, would likely be drawn to the Avatar-setting equivalent of chess (which I’m saying is Pai Sho, in that they’re both complex games of strategy), and is going through a series of events that work with the pre-existing themes we know the White Lotus contains. Having the Ace Benders start the Ember Island Players feels like too much of a stretch, when the majority of its members aren’t performers and those that are aren’t really actors.

It would absolutely be adorable to see Phoenix, Trucy, and Miles working together like that, though!


	53. Air Performer

anonymous asked: (crossover wise) i really like the idea of ace attorney trucy meeting avatar-setting performer phoenix! on that note, how does little trucy interact with phoenix in the avatar setting? does she get really interesting in doing tricks and performing from him?

greentrickster answered:

For the crossover, AA!Trucy and Avatar!Phoenix would have so much fun together, it’d be like having a big brother version of her dad and she’d love it, they’d do all sorts of tricks and stunts and AA!Phoenix would probably start going a little grey, but any potential jealousy would also be kept at bay by the fact that AA!Trucy only ever calls Avatar!Phoenix ‘Phoenix,’ never Daddy.

In the Avatar-setting, little Trucy just kind of gravitates towards Phoenix - she’s two, and he’s bright and colourful, especially when he’s wearing his performance costume and the ornaments that go with it. She ends up claiming one of his armbands to play with when she’s riding on Clay as they travel - Phoenix buys a decent-length multi-coloured ribbon and ties it to the armband and Trucy’s waist, so she doesn’t lose it by mistake, and she’ll spend hours just playing with it in different ways. Metal didn’t seem to be commonly used in Air Nomad clothing and ornaments, if at all, so she hasn’t really seen anything like it before and she’s fascinated.

She also finds out early on that firebender = very cozy to snuggle with, so it starts being a thing where everyone goes to sleep with Trucy near the adults, and everyone wakes up with Trucy snugged down between Phoenix and Miles. After the first month everyone gives up and accepts that this is life now and snugged between Phoenix and Miles is Trucy’s spot.

And just… you know how sometimes a toddler will look at someone and, for no reason discernible to any outsider, decide “You, you are my person now”? Trucy 100% does that with Phoenix. He is now her person, other people may spend time with him, but he’s Trucy’s first. Miles may share him with her, on the grounds that Miles has sensibly also figured out that Phoenix is the best person, and such intelligence should be rewarded.

I don’t know _how_ she ends up staying with Miles and Phoenix at the end of all this instead of going back to an air temple, but she does, and as she grows up she definitely high-key loves watching her Daddy performing with Klavier and her Papa helping, and she joins in as soon as she physically can. Her Daddy’s a fire performer, so she’s going to be an air performer.

Eventually, when she’s in her late teens, she does leave Phoenix and Miles for a bit to go stay at an air temple and get some formal training for her airbending, though I don’t think she ever gets her arrows. This isn’t because of lack of skill or mastery, but because she doesn’t really consider herself an Air Nomad, she’s a Multi-elemental child and an air performer, not a nun. She’s seen as a bit of a weirdo, but her choices are respected, because personal freedom is important to Air Nomads, and it’s not like she’s doing anything harmful, so it’s not really a problem.

She probably ends up traveling the world for most of her life, going from place to place to perform to new audiences, meet new people, and visit old friends. She always makes sure to return to Niponia port at least once a year, though, to visit her fathers.

(Ace Avatar yay) Will Trucy get her own sky bison?

[justanother--fan](https://justanother--fan.tumblr.com/)

I’d say the odds are good that she will, but it will be when she’s older and has gone to live at a temple and properly master airbending. She isn’t even intending to at first, since she doesn’t really think of herself as an Air Nomad at this point, she just accidentally bonds with a sky bison calf while helping the other initiates care for them as part of their chores, and the temple elders go “He’s picked you as his Person, far be it from us to interfere with the will of the original airbenders.”

So, yeah.

You know how Clay’s a sky bison in the Avatar-setting?

So is Mr. Hat, and he and Trucy love each other very much and go on many adventures together.


	54. Maya of the Foggy Swamp

justanother--fan asked: If Mia gets to be the Fey family's head, and Maya doesn't get to be an Ace Co-counsel, what does Maya do? Aww, now I need a 13 year old Maya art!

greentrickster answered:

I’m assuming this is for the Ace Avatar AU, Avatar-setting.

Well, first off, she gets to Not Wear Pants, because they don’t hold with that nonsense in the Foggy Swamp Tribe (and because “Death is an illusion and so are pants” is one of my all-time favorite AtLA lines). Actually, one of the running gags for the entire Avatar-setting is Maya vs. Wearing More Clothes. Because, quick reminder of what swampbenders wear:

and she’s probably wearing this and maybe a band of cloth or something around the chest and that’s _it_ , girl isn’t even wearing shoes. (Also, quiet reminder, Gumshoe’s a swampbender in this AU and I’m pretty sure we can all agree that he’d rock the look.) But, while this sort of outfit is honestly pretty practical in a place where wandering around up to your knees in water pretty often, in Everywhere Else, it’s seen as Practically Naked, please at least put on some pants and a vest.

Maya does not trust this high-falootin’, cutting-edge technology known as ‘pants,’ looks pretty suspicious to her, downright unnatural, really. The most they probably ever get her into is an outfit similar to her one of her AA looks or Katara’s Fire Nation disguise, something that doesn’t restrict her movement.

**Important question:** Is Maya serious about all this?

**Important answer:** She is 90% messing with them, 10% just doesn’t wanna wear pants, honestly, Nick, _Diego’s_ Lana’s fiance, you think I don’t know about pants? How have you survived so long in the wild?

Because Maya is absolutely traveling with the Ace Benders for their inadvertent cross-continental road trip of terror - I think the group goes Apollo and Trucy, Phoenix and Miles, Larry, Maya and Ema, Klavier, Sebastian, Kay, Simon, Franziska, Nahyuta in order of who joins when. Ema goes with them because she’s ‘hired’ the Ace Benders to save her sister, Maya goes along because she’s a wildly talented young medium/shaman and phrased it as going on her spirit quest early, and Mia gave her the okay.

So basically, Maya gets to travel the world and have an adventure while wearing a very stylish leaf hat and Mia gets to stay home and take care of things there. She also takes Apollo on at least three ‘field trips’ to the Spirit World once they find out he’s the avatar but before anyone finds out she’s doing it - in a way, she’s Apollo’s guide to the Spirit World, because coming and going from there is naturally very easy for her, and she’s pretty familiar with its dangers and marvels as a result. Having a Foggy Swamp medium/shaman first teaching him this stuff definitely flavours Apollo’s approach to the Spirit World for the rest of his life.

Thanks for the ask!

[ ](https://justanother--fan.tumblr.com/post/625667886591115264) [ justanother--fan ](https://justanother--fan.tumblr.com/post/625667886591115264)

Hmm. Currently thinking about Mia and how hard life is for her… And her clothes!! Just like when Pearly’s clothes are too small for her when she’s being channeled.

But Gumshoe? His speaking mannerisms is suited to the Foggy Swamp Tribe, pal! But is Lotta descended from the Foggy Swamp? She’s got their accent!

Will Maya teach Apollo about mastering the Avatar State? If so, she is now Guru Maya mwehehehe

[ ](https://greentrickster.tumblr.com/post/625673719347593216) [ greentrickster ](https://greentrickster.tumblr.com/post/625673719347593216)

I’d say that channeling spirits as they do in AA is done under special circumstances, and those capable of doing so have a special large, loose robe that they always wear when channeling, to prevent embarrassment for spirits from cultures who wore more clothes than the Foggy Swamp Tribe. Also, even if they don’t have the robe, I’m saying that in the Avatar-setting, their clothes adapt along with their bodies, because the thing with Mia being channeled by people wearing clothes much too small for her serves no function other than some cheap fan service. So that bit just isn’t applied in this setting.

I see no reason she can’t be either from there directly or from a different tribe of swampbenders, but I think I’ll leave the final call on that one to anyone interested in doing more with her in this AU.

Probably not - Maya’s knowledge is based more on spirits and the Spirit World herself than on the avatar. Basically, in this setting I’m saying the Feys’ powers swing both ways - they can call a ghost or spirit into their body so that said entity can talk with humans, and they can also send their own spirit into the Spirit World to learn and speak with its residents. What Maya teaches Apollo is how to do is the latter without needing to be in a highly spiritual place (in contrast to how Aang had to go to the Spirit Oasis in the North Pole to do the same thing). She might end up a guru, though, I frankly wouldn’t put anything past that girl. ;)

katlytl asked: Wait does this mean Diego get to wear little to no clothes in the Atla settling AU?

greentrickster answered:

You, my friend, are asking the _real_ questions here.

Also yes, yes it does, by the time the Ace Benders meet him, his typical outfit is classic swampbender loincloth and arm and leg wraps, a sleeveless blue shirt in place of the wood/bark chest guard, his betrothal necklace, and the two earrings in his left ear. The shirt _absolutely_ gets him teased by the rest of the swampbenders for being shy/prudish, and even a vague familiarity with Fire Nation culture wasn’t enough to prepare him for just how much skin it’s not only socially acceptable but normal to show in swampbender culture, _especially_ considering that he was raised in the North Pole.

From Diego’s perspective he is Surrounded By Naked People, and that took some getting used to, especially seeing Mia walk around like that. Not just because ‘holy spirits, _mostly naked fiance’_ but because this level of undress was probably only done around people who are family or you’re in a physical relationship with at the Poles, because _cold_. So while on the one hand it was very obvious that she was dressing this way because this is just how everyone dresses here, and he’s actually the weird one for wearing so many layers, it was still something that made him feel uncomfortable and kind of insecure about their relationship for awhile. His and Mia’s betrothal necklaces actually helped some with this, as a clearly overt sign that they were a serious item that he grew up with and didn’t have to think twice about interpreting, as well as eventually sitting down and talking things through with Mia when she cornered him about being broody and a little more possessive than usual. A hold-over from this is that Diego tends to fiddle with the ribbon of his betrothal pendant when he’s feeling nervous/worried about Mia or Lana.

It also took him awhile to finally start wearing a loincloth instead of trousers of some sort, at least half a year before he even considered it. Until then, he wore something similar to what Sokka wears while traveling the Earth Kingdom. It also took him awhile to get used to going primarily barefoot, though that was a gradual process from necessity as his feet toughened up to the point he could stand it.


	55. What of Franziska?

justanother--fan asked: (Avatar Setting) Ema joined the Ace Benders to help Lana, Sebastian joined so he can learn under Master Miles. Why did Franziska switch sides?

greentrickster answered:

Because Miles treated her not as a child, but as a worthy opponent when they fought, yet still never tried to truly injure her.

Because Phoenix treated her with kindness when she tried to provoke him to cruelty, and found a way to win an unwinnable situation.

Because Larry never laughs in mockery of anyone but himself, and fails frequently, and is still treated as though he has value.

Because, the time she was trapped with Sebastian and Klavier in a cave-in and she told them what her father expected, they told her that his expectations were wrong. That his actions were cruel. That they know her situation, because it is similar to their own family lives.

Because Apollo is only a few years younger than her, but he is a _child_ , a child as she has never been, but he nearly went with her when she promised that she would leave the rest of the Ace Benders alone, that Trucy would be safe, that his family would be safe.

Because Kay and Maya will fight her and thwart her and drive her crazy and ask her, at the end of the every fight, ‘are you sure we can’t be friends?’

Because all her life she has trained to be perfect. Because all her life she has sought her father’s approval. Because all her life she has known, in her bones, that she is not enough, and never can be.

Except here is a group of people who should not care about her, who are her enemies, whom she has _hurt_ , saying all the things her father never has. That she is powerful. That she is smart. That she is worthy of their respect. And that they know she can be better than she is.

And Franziska knows she has room for improvement, of course she knows, she is Manfred’s daughter. Except they do not say it as Papa says it, no chastisement in their eyes, no scorn in their tongues, no ‘you could be, but will not be.’ When they say it, ‘better’ is not a jagged mountain she must climb, it is as simple as taking a hand offered…

Franziska is not perfect. She does not know if she ever can be, not as Papa desires her to. But perhaps- perhaps Papa is a little less than perfect himself. She has tracked this group for months, has seen the touch of their passing on the towns they visit, the way they treat each other, the patterns of their movements. Franziska is young, but she is very smart. And a part of her is terrified, but she has learned to ignore that voice. And Papa? If Papa says that these people, these Ace Benders are dangerous, are a threat to the world, then Papa

Is

Wrong.

And Franziska can be better than him.

Franziska _chooses_ to be better than him.

And it is not an easy choice, but it is the right one. She knows it is. As the group bends and shifts and folds her into it as though she was always meant to be there, show her patience but also stand up to her, are so unthinkingly, mercilessly _kind_ , she knows it is. And she stands by it.


	56. Troupe Gramarye

justanother--fan asked: Remember Ace Avatar? It has been quite a while! Do you think there will be Troupe Gramarye travelling shenanigans in the Avatar-setting?

greentrickster answered:

Of course! I never truly forget any of my AUs, I just run out of things to say about them or get distracted by other stuff! As for Troupe Gramarye….

Well, Thalassa is canonically an airbender in the Avatar-setting, and she lives at the same temple as Jove, Dhurke, and Amara (who are all airbenders (and Amara’s the head of this temple)) and Datz (a non-bender who ended up joining the temple). She and Jove are quite close but not married, because airbenders. Zak visited Thalassa’s temple once, he and Thalassa had some fun, and then he left again and didn’t think about it much beyond “yeah, that was enjoyable,” because everyone knows temple airbenders don’t really do relationships the way people from the other nations do - some airbenders who aren’t connected to temples do (because, let’s be real, there had to be at least a few of them running around), but not the temple ones.

…actually, thinking about it, it’d be really interesting to see what a society where casual, open relationships are the norm and two-person closed relationships are seen as pretty weird, but that’s a whole ‘nother subject. Though I do love the fact that being around 1000 years in the past for this setting means I can say “oh yeah, this is totally how it works, and if canon says things are different then that’s just because it’s 1000 years in the future and there were just cultural shifts in the meantime.”

Anyway, back to the Gramaryes. I guess Thalassa herself was probably the result of Magnifi also having had an airbender fling of his own when he was younger, so he doesn’t even _know_ Thalassa’s his daughter, he’s just training Zak and Valant to be his successors since he doesn’t have any kids of his own, so he’s probably 90% less of a jerk to them and they’re not competing over Thalassa either so their own relationship is way healthier. Though Valant was probably swooning over Thalassa at the airbender temple, too, and-

…

…I was about to say “so would you guys be cool with-?” but then I remembered I am technically the god-creator of this AU and I can do what I want, so, yeah. Zak’s time with Thalassa at the temple just upgraded from “that was enjoyable” to “mind-blowing threesome with Zak, Thalassa, and Valant,” and this is now officially the world where not only is the _entirety_ of Troupe Gramarye 90% less awful to each other in regards to every relationship in it, Zak and Valent may or may not be dating, they’re not sure, more than one world-view got itself rocked by Thalassa.

After that I guess Troupe Gramarye just… travels around doing traveling performer stuff. Maybe they run into the Ace Benders a time or two. …maybe _they’re_ the traveling performers the Ace Benders keep running into a la the Cabbage Man, and Magnifi is getting madder and madder at the group every time because _his props_! but Zak and Valant think these kids are hilarious and amazing, and when they find out which air temple Trucy and Apollo are from absolutely make jokes like, “Yeah, we actually visited there three years ago, maybe one of us is Trucy’s dad, lol,” and Apollo’s like, “Oh! I remember you guys, you were interesting,” and the fact that Zak really is Trucy’s dad drives the entire audience nuts and _none of the characters ever find out that it’s true in-universe_. Because it’s funnier that way, and also isn’t anyone keeping secrets, they just literally don’t know.


	57. Do you see?

anonymous asked: In the AA setting of the Avatar AU, would Lamiroir use airbending in her performances or would her blindness interfere with her bending?

greentrickster answered:

I don’t think she would use it in her performances - just because you _can_ do something that would compliment another skill you have doesn’t mean you _do_. I’m a decent enough artist, but I almost never use it for my stories. In the more modern setting of AA, I think it’s common for people who can bend to not use it a lot in their work. There could even be stigmas against using bending for certain jobs, because it’s more impressive to be able to use said jobs without being able to bend.

As for her blindness, I would say that it would probably interfere with her bending at first just as it interferes with everything else in her life while she learns to adapt to life without sight. I’ve seen quite a few posts recently by people with visual impairment or who are blind saying they don’t really appreciate seeing a person without vision in media receive some ability that lets them ‘see’ as well as they would have otherwise, and would prefer to see the use of canes, guide dogs, and other real life tools be shown in a more accepting and positive light. And you know what? Fair. I’m not wild about how long-term depression and/or anxiety are often portrayed in media, so I might not get the exact frustration, but I do understand the idea of not liking something that is part of your daily life being shown in a way that feels uncomfortable or insulting or inaccurate.

That said, I think bending is the one set of ‘superpower’ abilities that it feels logical to use to compensate or enhance senses or abilities you do have when one is damaged or missing, given the way that benders seem to have a close connection to their elements. It makes sense that they’d find a way to use their bending to benefit or ease their daily life, same as a firebender chef might use their own abilities to get the perfect cooking temperature, airbenders seem to be able to use breathing to regulate their body temperature, or a waterbender could dry off instantly after a shower. In Thalassa’s case, I can see her having to relearn various aspects of how to airbend without the aid of visuals, and then probably using it in conjunction with a cane to help her get around. It’s shown in canon that airbenders can be sensitive to even the slightest of breezes and use this awareness to dodge attacks - Thalassa can probably use this in conjunction with her cane to better navigate her surroundings. I imagine a firebender with limited vision/blindness might be able to eventually pick up on the temperature of objects without touching them, like a hot car or being able to tell when their tea/soup/microwave burrito has reached the perfect temperature to eat. A waterbender in this situation would probably be very good at detecting other living beings, since it’s canonical that plants, animals, and people have enough water in them for waterbenders to manipulate if they’re strong enough though, similar to how Toph quietly holds onto one of the Gaang when they’re in that village on the water or a small boat and there isn’t any earth for her to use her tremor-sense with, they’d probably need a cane or something to deal with stuff like rocks and stuff.

And that’s just what I can think of as someone with extremely good vision - I’d honestly _love_ to hear what someone who is actually blind or has limited vision would do with this, because I’m sure there’s things I’m not thinking of or approaching from the wrong angle. Treating bending as just another sense, another thing you use to interact with the world, how would _you_ use it to your benefit? What tools that you use now do you think would work well with it, what ones would be counter-intuitive? What senses would pair well with what type of bending - I’d guess fire would go well with touch because heat, and air would go well with smell because getting scents off the breeze, but what do you think?

[justanother–fan](https://justanother--fan.tumblr.com/)

I wish Thalassa won’t lose her sight in the AU [in the Avatar setting]

greentrickster   
Given that there’s literally no reason for her to in the Avatar-setting, given that the circumstances leading to the injury that caused it in canon are impossible to replicate? There’s a good chance she won’t. Or, at least, not at the same time she does in canon. Who knows, she could get a different injury later on, or maybe her sight just starts to go as she gets older, there’s lots of things that could happen.

The _important_ thing though is that she never loses her memory in this setting. She never forgets her family or her loved ones or anything like that. The horrible separation from her children (from any of the temple’s children) never happens. The loss of a sense or a body part isn’t something I’d wish on anyone, but it’s the sort of thing that can be survived, and it isn’t something that has to lessen you. The loss of mind? The loss of memory? Those are terrors far, far worse than any physical injury, at least in my opinion.


End file.
